The
family of Dante had been Guelphic, and we have seen him already as a
young man serving two campaigns against the other party. But no immediate
question as between pope and emperor seems then to have been pending; and
while there is no evidence that he was ever a mere partisan, the reverse
would be the inference from his habits and character. Just before his
assumption of the priorate, however, a new complication had arisen. A
family feud, beginning at the neighboring city of Pistoja, between the
Cancellieri Neri and Cancellieri Bianchi,[23] had extended to Florence,
where the Guelphs took the part of the Neri and the Ghibellines of the
Bianchi.[24] The city was instantly in a ferment of street brawls, as
actors in one of which some of the Medici are incidentally named,--the
first appearance of that family in history. Both parties appealed at
different times to the pope, who sent two ambassadors, first a bishop and
then a cardinal. Both pacificators soon flung out again in a rage, after
adding the new element of excommunication to the causes of confusion. It
was in the midst of these things that Dante became one of the six priors
(June, 1300),--an office which the Florentines had made bimestrial in its
tenure, in order apparently to secure at least six constitutional chances
of revolution in the year.
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