me dominant in
Florence; and of the two, the Cerchi and their White adherents were less
formidable to the democracy than the unscrupulous and overbearing
Donati, with their military renown and lordly tastes; proud not merely
of being nobles, but Guelf nobles; always loyal champions, once the
martyrs, and now the hereditary assertors, of the great Guelf cause.
The Cerchi, with less character and less zeal, but rich, liberal, and
showy, and with more of rough kindness and vulgar good-nature for the
common people, were more popular in Guelf Florence than the _Parte
Guelfa_; and, of course, the Ghibellines wished them well.

Both the contemporary historians of Florence lead us to think that they
might have been the governors and guides of the Republic--if they had
chosen, and had known how; and both, though condemning the two parties
equally, seem to have thought that this would have been the best result
for the state. But the accounts of both, though they are very different
writers, agree in their scorn of the leaders of the White Guelfs. They
were upstarts, purse-proud, vain, and coarse-minded; and they dared to
aspire to an ambition which they were too dull and too cowardly to
pursue, when the game was in their hands. They wished to rule; but when
they might, they were afraid. The commons were on their side, the
moderate men, the party of law, the lovers of republican government, and
for the most part the magistrates; but they shrank from their fortune,
"more from cowardice than from goodness, because they exceedingly feared
their adversaries." Boniface VIII had no prepossessions in Florence,
except for energy and an open hand; the side which was most popular he
would have accepted and backed. But he said, "_Io non voglio perdere gli
uomini perle femminelle_."[38] If the Black party furnished types for
the grosser or fiercer forms of wickedness in the poet's hell, the White
party surely were the originals of that picture of stupid and cowardly
selfishness, in the miserable crowd who moan and are buffeted in the
vestibule of the Pit, mingled with the angels who dared neither to rebel
nor be faithful, but "were for themselves"; and whoever it may be who is
singled out in the _setta dei cattivi_, for deeper and special
scorn--he,

"Che fece per vilta il gran rifinto,"[39]

the idea was derived from the Cerchi in Florence.

Of his subsequent life, history tells us little more than the general
character. He acted for a