The following circumstance (considerably varied in particulars by different narrators) has been mentioned as the origin of this schism:--Two branches of the family of Cancellieri divided the patronage of Pistoia, which was then subject to Florence, between them. The heads of these were Gulielmo and Bertaccio. In playing at snow-balls, a son of the first happened to give the son of the second a black eye. Gulielmo, knowing the savage disposition of his kinsman, immediately sent his son to offer submission for the unlucky hit. Bertaccio, eager to avail himself of a pretext for quarrelling with the rival section of his house, seized the boy, and chopped off the hand which flung the snowball, drily observing, that blows could only be compensated by blows--not with words. Another version of the story is, that the young gentlemen, quarrelling over some game, drew their swords, when one wounded the other in the face; in retribution for which, Foccacio, brother to the latter, cut off his offending cousin's hand. The father of the mutilated lad immediately called upon his friends to avenge the inhuman outrage; Bertaccio's dependants not less promptly armed themselves to maintain his cause; and a civil war was ready to break out in the heart of the city. An ancestor of the Cancellieri family having married a lady named _Bianchi_, in honour of her one of the parties took the denomination of _Bianchi_ (whites), when the other, in defiance, assumed the reverse, and styled themselves _Neri_ (blacks).