hostile camp. Society was riven down to its foundation. Rancors dating
from the thirteenth century endured long after the great parties ceased
to have a meaning. They were perpetuated in customs, and expressed
themselves in the most trivial details. Banners, ensigns, and heraldic
colors followed the divisions of the factions. Ghibellines wore the
feathers in their caps upon one side, Guelfs upon the other. Ghibellines
cut fruit at table crosswise, Guelfs straight down. In Bergamo some
Calabrians were murdered by their host, who discovered from their way of
slicing garlic that they sided with the hostile party. Ghibellines drank
out of smooth, and Guelfs out of chased, goblets. Ghibellines wore
white, and Guelfs red, roses. Yawning, passing in the street, throwing
dice, gestures in speaking or swearing, were used as pretexts for
distinguishing the one half of Italy from the other. So late as the
middle of the fifteenth century, the Ghibellines of Milan tore Christ
from the high-altar of the Cathedral at Crema and burned him because he
turned his face to the Guelf shoulder. Every great city has a tale of
love and death that carries the contention of its adverse families into
the region of romance and legend. Florence dated her calamities from the
insult offered by Buondelmonte dei Buondelmonti to the Amidei in a
broken marriage. Bologna never forgot the pathos of Imelda Lambertazzi
stretched in death upon her lover Bonifazio Gieremei's corpse. The story
of Romeo and Juliet at Verona is a myth which brings both factions into
play, the well-meaning intervention of peace-making monks, and the
ineffectual efforts of the Podestà to curb the violence of party
warfare.

[1] The history of Florence illustrates more clearly than that of
any other town the vast importance acquired by trades and guilds in
politics at this epoch of the civil wars.