The _Commune_ included the Popolo, together with the non-qualified inhabitants, and was represented by Consuls, varying in number according to the division of the town into quarters.[4] Thus the Commune and the Popolo were originally separate bodies; and this distinction has been perpetuated in the architecture of those towns which still can show a Palazzo del Popolo apart from the Palazzo del Commune.

Since the affairs of the city had to be conducted by discussion, we find Councils corresponding to the constituent elements of the burgh.

There is the _Parlamento_, in which the inhabitants meet together to hear the decisions of the Bishop and the Popolo, or to take measures in extreme cases that affect the city as a whole; the _Gran Consiglio_, which is only open to duly qualified members of the Popolo; and the _Credenza_, or privy council of specially delegated burghers, who debate on matters demanding secrecy and diplomacy.

Such, generally speaking, and without regard to local differences, was the internal constitution of an Italian city during the supremacy of the Bishops.
[1] It is not necessary to raise antiquarian questions here relating to the origin of the Italian Commune.

Whether regarded as a survival of the ancient Roman _municipium_ or as an offshoot from the Lombard _guild_, it was a new birth of modern times, a new organism evolved to express the functions of Italian as different from ancient Roman or mediaeval Lombard life.