[282] _After, etc._: In the following nine lines the party history of Florence for two years after the period of the poem (March 1300) is roughly indicated. The city was divided into two factions--the Whites, led by the great merchant Vieri dei Cerchi, and the Blacks, led by Corso Donati, a poor and turbulent noble. At the close of 1300 there was a bloody encounter between the more violent members of the two parties. In May 1301 the Blacks were banished. In the autumn of that year they returned in triumph to the city in the train of Charles of Valois, and got the Whites banished in April 1302, within three years, that is, of the poet's talk with Ciacco. Dante himself was associated with the Whites, but not as a violent partisan; for though he was a strong politician no party quite answered his views. From the middle of June till the middle of August 1300 he was one of the Priors. In the course of 1301 he is believed to have gone on an embassy to Rome to persuade the Pope to abstain from meddling in Florentine affairs. He never entered Florence again, being condemned virtually to banishment in January 1302. [283] _The boorish party_: _la parte selvaggia_. The Whites; but what is exactly meant by _selvaggia_ is not clear. Literally it is 'woodland,' and some say it refers to the Cerchi having originally come from a well-wooded district; which is absurd. Nor, taking the word in its secondary meaning of savage, does it apply better to one party than another--not so well, perhaps, to the Whites as to the Blacks. Villani also terms the Cerchi _salvatichi_ (viii. 39), and in a connection where it may mean rude, ill-mannered. I take it that Dante here indulges in a gibe at the party to which he once belonged, but which, ere he began the _Comedy_, he had quite broken with. In _Parad._ xvii. 62 he terms the members of it 'wicked and stupid.' The sneer in the text would come well enough from the witty and soft-living Ciacco. [284] _Holpen, etc._: Pope Boniface, already intriguing to gain the preponderance in Florence, which for a time he enjoyed, with the greedy and faithless Charles of Valois for his agent. [285] _Two just_: Dante and another, unknown. He thus distinctly puts from himself any blame for the evil turn things had taken in Florence. How thoroughly he had broken with his party ere he wrote this is proved by his exclusion of the irresolute but respectable Vieri dei Cerchi from the number of the just men. He, in Dante's judgment, was only too much listened to.--It will be borne in mind that, at the time assigned to the action of the _Comedy_, Dante was still resident in Florence. [286] _Tegghiaio_: See _Inf._ xvi. 42. _Farinata_: _Inf._ x. 32. [287] _Rusticucci_: _Inf._ xvi. 44. _Mosca_: _Inf._ xxviii. 106. _Arrigo_: Cannot be identified. All these distinguished Florentines we may assume to have been hospitable patrons of Ciacco's.