DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61902#0065
THE MAKERS OF FLORENCE.
43
poet keeps his independent position—an arbitrator, not a
combatant; but the step he had himself taken in enrolling
his name on the popular side, and accepting employment
from the revolutionary state, must have separated him
from the noble party and from the family to which his wife
belonged, to whom, like enough, this descent in the social
scale, even though it brought public distinction, was little
agreeable.
While the feud thus smoldered, ever ready to break
out, an event happened which gave the pretense of a public
quarrel to the hostile neighbors. A large and powerful
family of Pistoia called Cancellieri—divided by its descent
from two wives of its founder, one of whom bore the name
of Bianca—-had lately carried its intestine tumults so far
that Florence had stepped in as suzerain of the lesser city,
and sentenced both parties to banishment. They obeyed,
but only by carrying their feud into Florence itself, where
the two smoldering animosities already existing leaped
with delight at this good occasion of declared and open
strife. The Cerchi adopted the cause of the Bianchi, the
Donati of the Neri. It was but another chapter of the
conflict between the noble and the plebeian, the Guelfs
and Ghibellines. To say what was the question between
the original Bianchi and Neri is beyond our power, as we
have already said it is difficult to decide what at any given,
period was the precise question between the Guelfs and
Ghibellines ; but whatever the pretense might be, the real
occasion of the continually renewed and varying quarrel
was that overwhelming impulse of the mediaeval mind to
warfare which took advantage of every chance of conflict.
One party got the upper hand, and banished with fierce
jubilee its opponents ; then the balance swung round, and
the victors became exiles in their turn, accepting the inevi-
table vicissitude : thus the story goes on. Churches had
been founded and walls built and trade had flourished, and
43
poet keeps his independent position—an arbitrator, not a
combatant; but the step he had himself taken in enrolling
his name on the popular side, and accepting employment
from the revolutionary state, must have separated him
from the noble party and from the family to which his wife
belonged, to whom, like enough, this descent in the social
scale, even though it brought public distinction, was little
agreeable.
While the feud thus smoldered, ever ready to break
out, an event happened which gave the pretense of a public
quarrel to the hostile neighbors. A large and powerful
family of Pistoia called Cancellieri—divided by its descent
from two wives of its founder, one of whom bore the name
of Bianca—-had lately carried its intestine tumults so far
that Florence had stepped in as suzerain of the lesser city,
and sentenced both parties to banishment. They obeyed,
but only by carrying their feud into Florence itself, where
the two smoldering animosities already existing leaped
with delight at this good occasion of declared and open
strife. The Cerchi adopted the cause of the Bianchi, the
Donati of the Neri. It was but another chapter of the
conflict between the noble and the plebeian, the Guelfs
and Ghibellines. To say what was the question between
the original Bianchi and Neri is beyond our power, as we
have already said it is difficult to decide what at any given,
period was the precise question between the Guelfs and
Ghibellines ; but whatever the pretense might be, the real
occasion of the continually renewed and varying quarrel
was that overwhelming impulse of the mediaeval mind to
warfare which took advantage of every chance of conflict.
One party got the upper hand, and banished with fierce
jubilee its opponents ; then the balance swung round, and
the victors became exiles in their turn, accepting the inevi-
table vicissitude : thus the story goes on. Churches had
been founded and walls built and trade had flourished, and