The Ciompi Revolt of 1378 was widely regarded as the first armed struggle by wage laborers. The wool workers launched it to gain the right to participate in municipal elections, raise wages, and extend debt repayment periods.
"It was clear that, under the laws governing rise and decline, regions often passed from order to chaos, then from chaos back to order. For the nature of human affairs did not permit any region to keep traveling along a smooth road forever; once it reached the height of perfection, it quickly declined. Likewise, once it had become utterly chaotic and sunk into such profound despair that it could fall no further, it was bound to begin rising again. Thus, things gradually went from good to bad, and then from bad to good."
Machiavelli wrote those words in his Florentine Histories, which also recorded the rebellion of 1378, though from a different perspective. From 1305 to 1377, because of the Babylonian Captivity of the Papacy, the Holy See was divided between Rome and Avignon. After Gregory XI was elected Pope of Avignon in 1370, he had continually sought to move the Holy See back to Rome. Like his predecessors, he sent representatives to govern Italy. Machiavelli wrote, "These representatives were greedy and oppressed many cities. At that time, one representative was stationed in Bologna. Taking advantage of the famine in Florence, he cut off all food supplies. Moreover, in order to ruin their future harvest, when spring arrived, he dispatched a large armed force to attack Florence, seeking to rule all Tuscany."
The representative had sent mercenaries. After the Florentines paid them 130,000 florins, they abandoned their plan to attack Florence.
"When men wished to wage war, they could do so, but when they wished to withdraw from it, that was often far