this plan did not work well. Party spirit had grown too violent to allow of half measures, and before the year was out the people rose again, and the Ghibelines were banished for good and all. FOOTNOTES: [8] It seems proper to say that this chapter was written, and at least some of it printed, before Mr. Oscar Browning’s interesting volume, _Guelphs and Ghibellines_ (Methuen), appeared. [9] It may not be out of place here to correct the vulgar error that “Guelf” is in any sense the surname of our Royal family. The house of Brunswick is no doubt lineally descended from these Welfs of Bavaria; but it has been a reigning house since a period long antecedent to the existence (among Teutonic peoples) of family or surnames, and there is no reason for assigning to the Queen the Christian name of one of her ancestors more than another--“Guelf” more than “George.” [10] Hallam considers that hostility to the Empire was the motive principle of the Guelf party in Lombardy; attachment to the Church in Tuscany. [11] Observe that the Bondelmonti were comparatively newcomers. They had originally belonged to Valdigreve, and had only lived in Florence for some eighty years at the date of this event. Hence they were looked upon as upstarts, and not properly speaking, nobles at all. See _Paradise_, xvi. 133-147. [12] _Hell_, xxviii. 106. [13] Possibly “by the Uberti lot.” [14] Villani, _Croniche_, v. 37. [15] _Purgatory_, xvi. 115. [16] The name _Podestà_ originally denoted the chief authority of a city or county, whether vested in one person or several. Frederick I. established Imperial officers under this title throughout Tuscany near the end of his reign, and for some time the Podestà was regarded as the Emperor’s delegate. Before the end of the century, however, they had become municipal officers, gradually displacing the former consuls from the chief position. About 1200 the custom of choosing them from the citizens of some other town than that in which they officiated, seems to have become established; the native consuls being their councillors. [17] _Hell_, x. 96. [18] _Hell_, xxxii. 81, 106. [19] _Ibid._, x. 36. [20] _Paradise_, vi. 133. [21] They seem to have acted on the principle of filling their own pockets, rather than of maintaining order; and are placed by Dante among the hypocrites, in the sixth pit of Malebolge (_Hell_, xxiii. 103). They belonged to the order of Knights of St. Mary, popularly called Jovial Friars. CHAPTER III. DANTE’S EARLY DAYS