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Yet while this war was carried on against the pope, they were unable to defend themselves against the captains of the parts and their faction; for the insolence of the Guelphs against the eight attained such a pitch, that they could not restrain themselves from abusive behavior, not merely against some of the most distinguished citizens, but even against the eight themselves; and the captains of the parts conducted themselves with such arrogance, that they were feared more than the Signory.
"The faction opposing them was known as the Guelphs and, while not directing the government, had the power to admonish. They controlled the captains of the parts, and had the support of the church, the nobility and the Albizzi family. "On St. John's day, when the gathering of their followers would go unnoticed in the vast holiday crowd, they had determined upon seizing the government.
During the eternal wars of Guelphs and Ghibelines and the long exile of the popes at Avignon, most of the towns and fortresses of the Romagna had been usurped by petty tyrants, who for the most part hard received from the Empire the investiture of their new possessions; but ever since German influence had retired beyond the Alps, and the popes had again made Rome the centre of the Christian world, all the small princes, robbed of their original protector, had rallied round the papal see, and received at the hands of the pope a new investiture, and now they paid annual dues, for which they received the particular title of duke, count, or lord, and the general name of Vicar of the Church.
A week or two before, each had had to compose a letter purporting to be from Dante in exile to a friend in Florence, describing Paris as it was in his time, especially the manners and customs of its universities, ending by some allusion to the state of matters between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. "Good heavens!
In order to put an end to the struggle of the Guelphs and Ghibellines at Forli, he persuaded the inhabitants to rebuild the city walls and to begin the works under a constellation indicated by himself. If then two men, one from each party, at the same moment put a stone into the foundation, there would henceforth and for ever be no more party divisions in Forli.
In Romagna, the hotbed of every ferocious passion, these two names had long lost all political meaning. It was a sign of the political delusion of the people that they not seldom believed the Guelphs to be the natural allies of the French and the Ghibellines of the Spaniards. It is hard to see that those who tried to profit by this error got much by doing so.
The war of the Florentines against the pope's legate, and the causes of it League against the pope The censures of the pope disregarded in Florence The city is divided into two factions, the one the Capitani di Parte, the other of the eight commissioners of the war Measures adopted by the Guelphic party against their adversaries The Guelphs endeavor to prevent Salvestro de Medici from being chosen Gonfalonier Salvestro de Medici Gonfalonier His law against the nobility, and in favor of the Ammoniti The Collegi disapprove of the law Salvestro addresses the council in its favor The law is passed Disturbances in Florence.
A sonnet and a bunch of red anemones went to the Palazzo Vergiolesi that evening; thenceforth it rained sonnets till poor little Selvaggia ran near losing her five wits. It rained sonnets, I say, until the Cancellieri brought out the black Guelphs in a swarm. Then it rained blood, and the Vergiolesi fled one cloudy night to Pitecchio, their stronghold in the Apennine.
We see among them no representative of Confucius, Chi-hoagti, and the sect of Ta-osse; no magi; no Pisistratus and Harmodius; no Socrates and Alcibiades; no patricians and plebeians; no Cæsar; no invasion or adoption of foreign mysteries; no mythical impersonation of an Ali; no Suffeeism; no Guelphs and Gibellines; nothing really on the type of Catholic religious orders; no Luther; nothing, in short, which, for good or evil, marks the presence of a life internal to the political community itself.
They were brave men in their day, mostly Guelphs, and faithful friends of the Colonna, and it is told how one of them died in a great fight between Colonna and Orsini. It was in that same struggle which culminated in the execution of Lorenzo Colonna, the Protonotary, that Pope Sixtus the Fourth destroyed the last remains of the Sublician Bridge, at the foot of the Aventine.
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