CANTO VI.

are necessarily in the predicament of having been inserted into the Canto long after it had been written; a mode (as I have shown) probably followed with respect to Lucia of Prato-vecchio, and possibly too with respect to the epoch selected for the opening of the poem (1).

The close of the thirteenth century saw Florence in a more flourishing state than she had ever attained, or is likely to attain again. The dispersion of the Ghibellines in the battle of Campaldino ten years before (2), left the Guelphs in undisturbed possession of the government; there were no strifes either between the nobles themselves, or the nobility and the people; the revenue was considerable; public works were erecting; all Tuscany was in obedience, partly as allies, partly subjects; and even within sound of the city tocsin could be mustered, at a moment's warning, no less an army than a hundred thousand men, — thirty thousand inside of the walls and seventy thousand in the immediate vicinity. But this felicity was not permanent. It was the fifteenth of April of the very year 1300, that a tavern altercation between two hot young men (Amadore and Carlino Can

(1) Hell, Comment, Canto 1. p. 8. Canto 11. p. 147. M. Sismondi ridicules fairly enough the dogmatism with which some argue; as if a poet must necessarily begin with the first verse of his poem and proceed regularly, verse by verse, to the last. Dante better than any one (from the independant nature of his Cantos) might go backward and forward, and retouch, without the risk of breach of connexion, and probably often did. Hist. des Repub. Ital. Vol. iv. p. 183. (2) Hell, Comment, Canto 1. p. 7.

CANTO VL.

cellieri) of the same name and near relatives, in the little town of Pistoja, (effecting a mischief in no proportion with so insignificant a cause) sowed the speedy ruin of the illustrious and powerful Florentine republic(1). The Cancellieri were a family of not very high lineage, but so rich, that they were considered as by far the most powerful in Pistoja, and scarcely inferior to any in Tuscany; boasting of eighteen knights of the gold spur, and a hundred valiant men at arms. Their common ancestor was a merchant, who, besides an immense fortune, left a very numerous issue by two wives; one of whom being named (Bianca) White, the other was called (Nera) Black ; and their respective children were designated by similar appellations (2). In that drunken squabble one of the Blacks, young Amadore, having been slightly wounded, and disdaining to take revenge on the youth who was the offendor (Carlino, the White), lay in wait that evening with an intention to murder the first of the same party who should pass by: and a certain

(1) Macchiavelli, Ist. Fior. Lib. 2. p. 85.—Gio. Villani, Lib. v111. Cap. 38.

(2) Fioravanti affirms that their true names were Nera and Bianca, and gives the genealogical tree. That one should have been called Bianca by right, and her successor acquire, on that account, the name Nera, is natural; but if so strange a coincidence occurred, as that they had those opposite appellations from their child-hood, we may suppose it ominous of the unnatural factions that were to ensue. Other chroniclers however attribute other origins to those terms: as Ferretti Vicen. (Rer. Ital. Scrip. T. 1x.) who deduces them from two brothers, one with black and the other with light hair. Fior. Mem. Ist. di Pistoja. p. 248.

CANTO VI.

Vanni, a lawer, happing to be the luckless wight, was assaulted so violently by that juvenile ruffian, that, although he was not exactly put to death, he was severely lacerated in the face and had a hand cut off (1). It was the style of the age, that to have complete revenge one must punish, not the actual criminal, but some innocent member of the same body. To have wreaked it on the former would have been only a chastisement to be expected; and not likely to cause that profound desolation, which true revenge required. Besides, since the first violence had fallen on an innocent man, it was necessary, to maintain equality, that the second too should be directed against one as innocent (2). Amadore's father however (who must have been somewhat of an exception to the rudeness of the times) obliged him to go to ask pardon of his cousin, Vanni; and, with marvellous generosity considering his knowledge of the man, delivered up his son to Vanni's father to be sentenced as he thought proper; only conjuring him not to forget that the youth, though culpable, was his near relative. The barbarity of what succeeded is rendered far more flagrant if (as some write (3))

(1) His left baud, except the thumb. Fior. ut supra.

(2) Sismondi, Hist. des Repub. Ital. Vol. 1v. p. 98.

(3) Priorista Fiorentino. p. 40....feri leggiermente... Indeed neither Villani, nor Dino Compagni, nor Macchiavelli mentions the cutting off of more than one hand; and surely one suffices. Benvenuti of Imola's recital of the matter is still more different: he speaks of a hand amputated for no other offence than a slap given by one child to another.

ANTO VI.

Vauni had only been slightly wounded, and that not premeditatedly, but in a fray: for his brutal father, opening the door to Amadore, led him forthwith into the stable, and cut off his right hand upon the manger and gave him a deep gash across the face, without uttering any other speech than this'nów you are at liberty to return home and say to him who sent you, that wounds are healed by steel, not by words.' This savage act, which in a well-regulated community would have only excited universal abhorrence, and been quietly punished by the insulted law of the land, gave, in Pistoja, immediate birth to two furious factions, the Blacks and the Whites; who adopted these adverse colours in the Cockades which they hastened to assume. Nor did the pestilence rest in Pistoja; but spreading like wild-fire throughout Tuscany, it arrived in a few weeks at Florence, which, as if impatient of peace and prosperity, received with transport the pledge of civil war and separated at once, nobles and people (all promiscuously without exception 'male and

female, poor and rich, priest and friar (1)') into Blacks and Whites: the former banner being hoisted by the ancient and potent Donati; and the latter by the Cerchi, a family of less illustrious

In this however he is not so likely to be accurate, as the chroniclers of Pistoja itself. As to the substance of the atrocity, all agree. Mur. Antiq. Ital. Vol. 1. p. 1136.

(1) Ist. Pistolesi, ap. Rer. Ital. Scrip. T. 1. p. 368.

CANTO VA

extraction, but richer than any other in the Commonwealth. The Donati or chiefs of the Blacks, (says Boccaccio (1))' were somewhat on the decline in point of fortune: and this consideration contributed perhaps a little to render them still more affable towards their fellow citizens of every rank, than their natural courtesy prompted: the Cerchi, or white chieftains were on the contrary all of them rich, and not only very haughty and proud, but even rather rude and contumelious in their manners, as if they disdained to caress their townsmen or in any way seek after popularity.' These factions entering into Florence in the first days of May, 1300, gave rise to incessant sanguinary broils during the entire month: the Pope in vain endeavouring to appease them, by calling the eldest of the Cerchi to Rome; for this White chieftain refused to make peace with the Donati, under the pretence of his not being at war with them; and few circumstances prove more intelligibly the barbarity of society then, than its being a ball that was pitched upon as a rendezvous for the two factions to appear at armed; whereupon they advanced from mutual coarse jests and reviling to an actual fray, which cost one of the

(1) I capi Bianchi erano tutti ricchi ed agiati uomini, e per questo non erano solamente superbi ed altieri, ma anche selvatichetti intorno a costumi citadineschi, e non erano accostanti all' usanze degli uomini nè gli carrezzavano, come per avventura faceva la parte Nora, la quale era più povera. Comento, Vol. 1. p. 350.