During the later part of the twelfth and the whole of the thirteenth century most Italian cities were governed by a podestà. Concerning Rome, with a history of civic violence, Gregorovius says that "in 1205 the Pope Innocent III changed the form of the civic government; the executive power lying henceforward in the hand of a single senator or podest, who, directly or indirectly, was appointed by the pope". In Florence after 1180, the chief authority was transferred from the consuls to the podest, and Milan and other cities were also ruled by these officials. The Republic of Genoa elected its first Podestà in 1191, a Brescian citizen, to quell the internal unrest that ravaged the capital of the Republic. There were, moreover, podests in some of the cities of the adjoining Provence in southeastern France.