But the fortunes of Florentine factions depended on other causes than merely the address or vigour of their leaders. From the year of Dante's birth and Charles's victory, Florence, as far as we shall have to do with it, became irrevocably Guelf. Not that the whole commonalty of Florence formally called itself Guelf, or that the Guelf party was co-extensive with it; but the city was controlled by Guelf councils, devoted to the objects of the great Guelf party, and received in return the support of that party in curbing the pride of the nobles, and maintaining democratic forms. The Guelf party of Florence, though it was the life and soul of the republic, and irresistible in its disposal of the influence and arms of Florence, and though it embraced a large number of the most powerful families, is always spoken of as something distinct from, and external to, the governing powers, and the whole body of the people. It was a body with a separate and self-constituted existence;--in the state and allied to it, but an independent element, holding on to a large and comprehensive union without the state. Its organisation in Florence is one of the most curious among the many curious combinations which meet us in Italian history. After the final expulsion of the Ghibellines, the Guelf party took form as an institution, with definite powers, and a local existence. It appears with as distinct a shape as the Jacobin Club or the Orange Lodges, side by side with the government. It was a corporate body with a common seal, common property, not only in funds but lands--officers, archives, a common palace,[11] a great council, a secret committee, and last of all, a public accuser of the Ghibellines; of the confiscated Ghibelline estates one-third went to the republic, another third to compensate individual Guelfs, the rest was assigned to the Guelf party.[12] A pope, (Clement IV., 1265-68) had granted them his own arms[13]; and their device, a red eagle clutching a serpent, may be yet seen, with the red lily, and the party-coloured banner of the commonalty, on the battlements of the Palazzo Vecchio. [Footnote 11: Giotto painted in it: Vasari, _Vit. di Giotto_, p. 314.] [Footnote 12: G. Villani, vii. 2, 17.] [Footnote 13: _Ibid._ vii. 2.]