[2] This is the sting of Cacciaguida's scornful lamentation over
Florence Par. xvi.

Ma la cittadinanza, ch' è or mista
Di Campi e di Certaldo e di Figghine,
Pura vedeasi nell' ultimo artista.

Tal fatto è fiorentino, e cambia e merca,
Che si sarebbe volto a Semifonti,
Là dove andava l' avolo alia cerca.

Sempre la confusione delle persone
Principio fu del mal della cittade,
Come del corpo il cibo che s' appone.

So deep and dreadful was the discord, so utter the exhaustion, that the
distracted Communes were fain at last to find some peace in tyranny. At
the close of their long quarrel with the house of Hohenstauffen, the
Popes called Charles of Anjou into Italy. The final issue of that policy
for the nation at large will be discussed in another portion of this
work. It is enough to point out here that, as Ezzelino da Romano
introduced despotism in its worst form as a party leader of the
Ghibellines, so Charles of Anjou became a typical tyrant in the Guelf
interest. He was recognized as chief of the Guelf party by the
Florentines, and the kingdom of the Two Sicilies was conferred upon him
as the price of his dictatorship. The republics almost simultaneously
entered upon a new phase. Democratized by the extension of the
franchise, corrupted, to use Machiavelli's phrase, in their old
organization of the Popolo and Commune, they fell into the hands of
tyrants, who employed the prestige of their party, the indifference of