therefore, in spite of her support of papal claims for political empire, when the _Divina Commedia_ came to be written, Dante placed her as guardian of the Earthly Paradise to which the Emperor should guide man, and made her the type of the glorified active life. Her praises, _la lauda di Matelda_, were long sung in the Florentine churches, as may be gathered from a passage in Boccaccio. It is from the death of Matilda in 1115 that the history of the Commune dates. During her lifetime she seems to have gradually, especially while engaged in her conflicts with the Emperor Henry, delegated her powers to the chief Florentine citizens themselves; and in her name they made war upon the aggressive nobility in the country round, in the interests of their commerce. For Dante the first half of this twelfth century represents the golden age in which his ancestor lived, when the great citizen nobles--Bellincion Berti, Ubertino Donati, and the heads of the Nerli and Vecchietti and the rest--lived simple and patriotic lives, filled the offices of state and led the troops against the foes of the Commune. In a grand burst of triumph that old Florentine crusader, Cacciaguida, closes the sixteenth canto of the _Paradiso_: "Con queste genti, e con altre con esse, vid'io Fiorenza in sì fatto riposo, che non avea cagion onde piangesse; con queste genti vid'io glorioso, e giusto il popol suo tanto, che'l giglio non era ad asta mai posto a ritroso, nè per division fatto vermiglio."[5] [5] "With these folk, and with others with them, did I see Florence in such full repose, she had not cause for wailing; With these folk I saw her people so glorious and so just, ne'er was the lily on the shaft reversed, nor yet by faction dyed vermilion."--Wicksteed's translation.