Such insults were then impatiently borne; Oddo Arrighi assembled his kindred in the no longer existing church of Santa Maria sopra Porta to settle the mode of resenting this affront, and the moody aspect of each individual marked the character of the meeting and all the vindictive feeling of an injured family; there were, however, some of a more temperate spirit that suggested personal chastisement or at most the gashing of Buondelmonte’s face as the most reasonable and effectual retribution. The assembly paused, but Mosca de’ Lamberti starting suddenly forward exclaimed, “Beat or wound him as ye list, but first prepare your own graves, for wounds bring equal consequences with death.” “No. Mete him out his deserts and let him pay the penalty; but no delay. Up and be doing.” This turned the scale and Buondelmonte was doomed, but according to the manners of that age, not in the field, which would have been hazardous, but by the sure though inglorious means of noonday murder; wherefore, at the very place where the insult was offered, beneath the battlements of the Amidei, nay under the casement of the deserted maiden, and in his way to a happy expecting bride, vengeance was prepared by these fierce barons for the perjurer. [Sidenote: [1215-1239 A.D.]] On Easter morning, 1215, the murderers concealed themselves within the courts and towers of the Amidei, which the young and heedless bridegroom was sure to pass, and he was soon after seen at a distance carelessly riding alone across the Ponte Vecchio on a milk-white palfrey, attired in a vest of fine woollen cloth, a white mantle thrown across his shoulders and the wedding garland on his head. The bridge was passed in thoughtless gaiety, but scarcely had he reached the time-worn image of the Roman Mars, the last relic of heathen worship then extant, when the mace of Schiatto degli Uberti felled him to the ground, and at the base of this grim idol the daggers of Oddo and his furious kinsmen finished the savage deed; they met him gay and adorned for the altar, and left him with the bridal wreath still dangling from his brow a bloody and ill-omened sacrifice. The tidings of this murder spread rapidly, and disordered the whole community of Florence; the people became more and more excited, because both law and custom had awarded due penalties for faithless men, and death was an unheard-of punishment. Buondelmonte’s corpse was placed on a bier, with its head resting in the lap of his affianced bride, the young and beautiful Donati, who hung like a lily over the pallid features of her husband; and thus united were they borne through the streets of Florence. It was the gloomy dawning of a tempestuous day, for in that bloody moment was unchained the demon of Florentine discord; the name of Guelf and Ghibelline were then for the first time assumed by noble and commoner as the cry of faction; and long after the original cause of enmity had ceased, they continued to steep all Italy in blood.