Historical Background of Dante 81
a feud had arisen between two branches of the CanceIlieri,
a Guelf family who were descended from the same sire
but by different mothers. These two branches adopted dis-
tinctive names, the one being known as the Cancellieri
Bianchi, or White Cancellieri, as being descended from Can-
cellieri’s wife Bianca, the other as the Cancellieri Neri, or
Black Cancellieri. The strong feeling of rivalry broke out
at last into actual hostilities as the result of an atrocious act
on the part of a certain youth named Focaccia. Focaccia,
angered at what he deemed an insult to his father, seized
the offending youth, his own cousin, dragged him into a
stable, and cut off his hand on the manger. Not content
with this, Focaccia sought out the boy’s father, his own
uncle, and murdered him. This crime led to reprisals, and
in a short time the whole city was in an uproar. One half
the citizens sided with the Whites, the other half with the
Blacks, so that Pistoja was reduced to a state of civil war.
To put an end to this state of things the Florentines inter-
vened; in the hope of extinguishing the feud they secured the
leaders of both factions and imprisoned them in Florence.
But this measure only led to the introduction of the feud
among the Florentines themselves. In Florence also there
happened to be two rival families, the Donati, who were of
ancient lineage but in reduced circumstances, and the
Cerchi, who were wealthy upstarts. The former, headed
by Corso Donati, took the part of the Black Cancellieri,
while the Cerchi, headed by Vieri de’ Cerchi, took the part
of the White Cancellieri. Thus it came about that, through
the private enmities of two Pistojan and two Florentine
families, Florence, which was ostensibly Guelf at the time,
became divided into Black Guelfs and White GueIfs. These
two divisions, which had originally been wholly unpolitical,
by degrees became respectively pure Guelfs and disaffected