force. All the previous humors and discords of the nation were absorbed
by them. The Guelf party meant the burghers of the consular Communes,
the men of industry and commerce, the upholders of civil liberty, the
friends of democratic expansion. The Ghibelline party included the
naturalized nobles, the men of arms and idleness, the advocates of
feudalism, the politicians who regarded constitutional progress with
disfavor. That the banner of the Church floated over the one camp, while
the standard of the Empire rallied to itself the hostile party, was a
matter of comparatively superficial moment. The true strength of the war
lay in the population, divided by irreconcilable ideals, each eager to
possess the city for itself, each prepared to die for its adopted
principles. The struggle is a social struggle, played out within the
precincts of the Commune, for the supremacy of one or the other moiety
of the whole people. A city does not pronounce itself either Guelf or
Ghibelline till half the burghers have been exiled. The victorious
party organizes the government in its own interest, establishes itself
in a Palazzo apart from the Commune, where it develops its machinery at
home and abroad, and strengthens its finance by forced contributions and
confiscations.[1] The exiles make common cause with members of their own
faction in an adverse burgh; and thus, by the diplomacy of Guelfs and
Ghibellines, the most distant centers are drawn into the network of a
common dualism. In this way we are justified in saying that Italy
achieved her national consciousness through strife and conflict; for the
Communes ceased to be isolated, cemented by temporary leagues, or
engaged in merely local conflicts. They were brought together and
connected by the sympathies and antipathies of an antagonism which
embraced and dominated the municipalities, set Republics and Regno on
equal footing, and merged the titular leaders of the struggle, Pope and
Emperor, in the uncontrollable tumult. The issue was no vulgar one; no
merely egotistic interests were at stake. Guelfs and Ghibellines alike