In late medieval Florence, the disenfranchised ciompi ("wool carders") are a class of laborers in the textile industry who are not represented by any guild.
The ciompi are among the most radical of the lower-class groups, vegetable sellers and crockery vendors and the like, and resent the controlling power that was centered in the Arte della Lana, the textile-manufacturing establishment which guides the economic engine of Florence's prosperity.
In 1378, ciompi launch the Revolt of the Ciompi, a briefly successful insurrection of the disenfranchised lower classes, the popolo minuto, which is to remain as a traumatic memory for members of the major guilds and contribute to the support given to the Medici long afterwards, as stabilizers of Florentine order.
The revolt briefly brings to power in 14th-century Florence an unprecedented level of democracy.
The ciompi are defeated by the more conservative elements in Florentine society when the major and minor guilds close ranks to re-establish the old order, a counter-revolution in which the knight Salvestro de' Medici plays a prominent role.
