A judgment of the important historian Giovanni Sercambi from Lucca has been preserved on this period, he especially highlights the conferment of all offices to supporters of the dominant family and also mentions the provisions to prevent the largest assembly of citizens (the General Council) from meeting. The role of this was taken by a Commission made up of twelve or eighteen partisans of the ruling house. Sercambi remembers more generally the restriction of all expenses, except those in favor of the mercenaries, considered indispensable to not live in continuous fears and dangers, and which had to be kept happy, as well as the secret acts of violence committed to get rid of the most rebels dangerous.