e the image of a very notable figure in the Florence of my
youth, a very forward man in the squabbles of the Yellows and the Reds.

It would, I think, be very hard to make any stranger acquainted with the
state of our city at this time, for it was more split and fissured with
feuds and dissensions than a dried melon rind. It had pleased Heaven in
its wisdom to decide that it was not enough for us to be distraught with
the great flagrant brawls between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines,
between those that stood for Roman Emperor and those that stood for
Roman Pope. No, we must needs be divided again into yet further
factions and call ourselves Reds and Yellows, and cut one another's
throats in the name of these two colors with more heat and zeal in the
cutting than had ever stirred the blood of the partisans of the two
great camps.

This Red and Yellow business began simply enough and grimly enough in a
quarrel between two girls, distant kinswomen, of the House of the Casa
Bella. One of these girls maintained, at some merry-making, that she was
comelier than the other, which that other very stoutly denied, and from
the bandying of words they came to the bandying of blows, and because it
is never a pretty sight to see two women at clapper-claws together,
those about bestirred themselves to sunder the sweet amazons, and in the
process of pulling them apart more blows were given and exchanged
between those that sought at first to be peacemakers, and there were
many hot words and threats of vengeance.

From this petty beginning, like your monumental oak from your pigmy
acorn, there grew up a great feud between the families of the two girls,
and like a poison the plague of the quarrel spread to Florence, and in a
twinkling men were divided against each other in a deathly hatred that
in their hearts knew little of the original quarrel, and cared nothing
at all for it. But as all parties must needs have a nickname, whether
chosen or conferred, the first of these parties was called Yellow,
because the girl that began the quarrel had yellow eyes; and the other
party in mockery called itself Red, because the girl that was, as it
were, the patron saint of their side of the squabble had red hair. These
Reds and Yellows fought as fiercely in Florence as ever the Blues and
the Greens in Constantinople of old time. And in our city the Donati
sided with the Reds, and the Cerchi with the Yellows, and all that loved
either of these great