Poi che in mal far lo seme tuo avanzi?"

"O Giustizia di Dio, quanto e severa,..." yet Dante's will beggar it.

The origin of Pistoja is obscure. Some ascribe its foundation to the
Boian Gauls, some to the Romans; however that may be, it was here in
Pistoria, as the city was then called, that the army of the Republic
came up with Cataline, and defeated him and slew him in B.C. 62. There
follows an impenetrable silence, unbroken till, by the will of the
Countess Matilda, Tuscany passed, not without protest as we know, to the
Pope, when Pistoja seems to have vindicated its liberty in 1117, its
commune contriving her celebrated municipal statutes. In 1198 she made
one of the Tuscan League against the empire, and in the first year of
the thirteenth century she had extended her power over the neighbouring
strongholds from Fucecchio to the Arno. After the death of Frederic II,
in 1250, she became Guelph with the greater part of Tuscany, and in 1266
took part with Charles of Anjou and fought on his side at Benevento
under the Pistojese captains, Giovanni and Corrado da Montemagno. About
this time we first hear the name Cancellieri, Cialdo de' Cancellieri
being Potesta. At Campaldino the Pistojese fought under Corso Donati,
and turned the battle against the Aretines; and it was under the Potesta
Giano della Bella in 1294[136] that the Priore of the twelve _anziani_,
established after Campaldino, was named Gonfaloniere of Justice.
Villani gives us a vivid picture of Pistoja in 1300. "In these times,"
says the prince of Florentine chroniclers, "the city of Pistoja being in
happy and great and good estate, among the other citizens there was one
family very noble and puissant, not, however, of very ancient lineage,
which was called Cancellieri, born of Ser Cancelliere, which was a
merchant and gained much wealth, and by his two wives had many sons,
which, by reason of their riches, all became knights and men of worth
and substance, and from them were born many sons and grandsons, so that
at this time they numbered more than one hundred men in arms, rich and
puissant and of many affairs; and indeed, not only were they the leading
citizens of Pistoja, but they were among the more puissant families of
Tuscany. There arose among them, through their exceeding prosperity, and
through the suggestion of the devil, contempt and enmity, between them
which were born of one wife and them which were born of the other; and
the one took the