Another event, which was to influence the destinies of Florence and of Dante, occurred shortly before Giano’s overthrow. This was the election to the Papacy, in 1294, of Benedetto Guatani, known to history as Boniface VIII. The most vigorous Pope who had held the office for several generations, he soon let it be known that he intended to revive all the claims which his predecessors, Gregory VII. and Innocent III., had made to temporal as well as spiritual supremacy. His first efforts were devoted to getting Tuscany into his hands, and to this end he seems to have intrigued freely with the leaders of both parties in Florence. In theory, of course, where all were Guelfs, the Pope ought to have had little trouble; but there were Guelfs and Guelfs, and it was not long before party differences were emphasised, and, so to say, crystallised, by party names. Curiously enough, these again appear first at Pistoia. A family feud there had led to two branches of the Cancellieri being distinguished as Black and White, and towards 1300 the names appear at Florence. The Donati headed the Black faction; their rivals, the Cerchi, the White. The latter represented the more orderly section of the community; the former reproduced all the worst features of the old Ghibeline aristocracy, though in the end it was the Whites who had to coalesce with the Ghibelines. At first, indeed, it would seem as if Boniface might have been willing to work with the Whites. He sent for Vieri de’ Cerchi, the leader of that party, and tried to induce him to live peaceably with the other side. Vieri, for reasons which we can only conjecture, replied curtly that he had no quarrel with any one; and Boniface resorted to the old expedient of sending a Cardinal--Matthew of Acquasparta--to reconcile the factions. We have now reached the critical year of Dante’s life--that in which he held the office of Prior. But for the events of this and the next two years, it may be doubted whether the _Commedia_ would ever have come into existence, at least in the form in which six centuries have studied and admired it. Henceforth Dante’s own history, rather than that of his times, will be our chief subject. FOOTNOTES: [26] In 1300, when the Black and White factions arose, we find among the twenty-eight houses enumerated by Machiavelli, as the chief on either side, only _three_ which in the old days had belonged to the Ghibeline party. CHAPTER V. DANTE’S EXILE