The Eight Saints  may refer to one or both of two, eight-member Balìa appointed by the Signoria of Florence during the war. When Florence arranged a nonaggression pact with Hawkwood at a cost of 130,000 florins, a special commission of eight citizens was created to levy a one-year, forced loan on the clergy of Florence and Fiesole to cover the sum. A second council of eight men was later created to make the military and diplomatic arrangements necessary to carry on a war against the Pope. The group identity of the Eight Saints remains a controversial subject. The levy committee is most widely accepted as the Otto Santi by scholars, though some argue that Otto Santi refers to the war council. The first historical reference to the Eight of War  as the Otto Santi occurs in 1445 with the account of Florentine historian Domenico Buoninsegni; it does not appear in the accounts of contemporaries of the war such as Leonardo Bruni and Giovanni Morelli. Buoninsegni had applied the appellation—used in August 1378 to refer to an eight-member group  formed by the Ciompi revolt, which ensued immediately after the War of the Eight Saints—to the Otto della Guerra.  In contrast, the moniker is used in the March 31, 1376 bull of excommunication to refer to the Otto dei Preti . The Otto dei Preti, appointed July 7, 1375 to carry out the taxation of the clergy for the nonaggression pact included:
How many citizens were there in the commission?
8