vities, the home of a cultured pleasure-loving people, it
was the frequent scene of feuds and factions handed down from sire to
son. The hatred they engendered and the desolation they caused may be
understood from the reading of Romeo and Juliet, a tragedy whose scene
is laid in Verona in the year 1303 and to the families concerned in
which Dante makes allusion in the sixth canto of his Purgatorio. But
Verona and Florence were not the only cities involved by the militarism
of the age. Especially in northern Italy were strife and bloodshed
common. Province, city, town, hamlet and even households were torn by
internal dissensions, which only complicated the main conflict of that
day, viz., the world struggle for supremacy of pope and emperor.

The imperial party called Ghibellines, composed mainly of aristocrats
and their followers, aimed to break down the barriers which kept the
German Emperor out of Italy, their object being to have him subjugate
the whole country, even the states of the Pope. The papal or popular
party, known as Guelfs, had as its purpose the independence of
Italy--the freedom and alliance of the great cities of the north of
Italy and dependence of the center and southern parts on the Roman See.
A few months after Dante's death, the Ghibellines, the imperial party,
suffered a defeat by the overthrow of King Manfred from which they never
recovered. But in Florence for many years they maintained their
struggle.

To add to the confusion of the Florentines whose sympathy was mostly
Guelf--i.e. favorable to the papal or popular cause--the Guelf party of
Florence was divided into two factions, the Bianchi and the Neri, the
history of whose tumults often leading to blood and mischief may be
known by the frequent allusions of our poet. Embroiled by those feuds,
Dante is found not only as a prior among the ruling Bianchi but as a
soldier under arms at the battle of Campaldino and at the siege of
Caprona. Later when the Neri were restored to power, Dante was banished
and never again beheld his beloved city. In exile Dante transferred his
allegiance to the Ghibellines though he upheld the Guelf view as to the
primacy of the Church. Subsequently he tried, but in vain, to form a
party independent of Guelf, Ghibelline, Bianchi or Neri.

May I conclude this chapter by giving you another view of Dante's
environment? To point out the degeneracy of Florence, Dante becomes a
_laudator acti temporis_ in a picture of the