The facts narrated by the Mediaeval source are transformed, re-interpreted and re-proposed by Alberti according to stylistic formulae which have been inspired by the tradition of classic rhetoric from Aristotle to Quintilian.
Similarly every element also substantial which could lead to the reality of the 13th Century Communal period is eliminated and everything is suspended in an abstract pseudo Roman atmosphere: the ‘general Council’ is transformed into a ‘Senate’, the ‘counsellors’ into ‘patres’, opinions become true and proper deliberative orations or suasoriae.
In particular in the composition of the latter Alberti follows faithfully the rules foreseen by the Trivia senatoria, those same rules that he gave to the young Lorenzo de’Medici: the moving of emotions, the confutation of other proposals, the presentation of one’s own thesis and its demonstration according to a set order; at the same time the style is refined by the use of a great number of figures of speech.