This happened during the priorship of Dante, who, with the approbation of his colleagues, summoned the leaders of the antagonist factions to repair to Florence, to prevent that extremity of violence with which they threatened not Pistoia only, but the whole commonwealth. This, as Leonardo Bruni observes, was importing the plague to the capital, instead of taking means to repress it upon the spot where it had already appeared. For it so fell out, that Florence itself was principally under the influence of two great families,--the Cerchi and the Donati,--habitually jealous of one another, and each watching for opportunity to obtain the ascendancy. When, therefore, the hostages for preserving the peace of Pistoia arrived, the Bianchi were hospitably entertained by the Cerchi, and the Neri by the Donati; the natural consequence of which was, that the people of Florence were far more annoyed by the acquisition, than those of the neighbouring city were benefited by the riddance of so troublesome a crew. What these incendiary spirits had been doing in a small place, on a small scale, they forthwith began to do on a large scale, in a large place. Jealousies, fears, and antipathies were easily awakened among the families with which the partisans respectively associated. From these, through every rank of citizens down to the lowest, the contagion spread; first seizing the youth, who were sanguine and restless, but soon infecting persons of all ages; till every man who had a mind or an arm to influence or to act, enlisted himself with one side or the other. In the course of a few months, from whisperings the discontents rose to clamours, from words to blows, and from feuds in private dwellings to battles in the streets; so that not the metropolis only, but the whole territory, became involved in unnatural contention.