And for this
sin, and for many others done by the wicked people, many wise persons
say that God, for Divine judgment, permitted upon the said people the
revenge and slaughter of Monteaperti."
[Footnote: At least, the compound 'Mangia-pane,' 'munch-bread,' stands
still for a good-for-nothing fellow.]
132. The sentence which I have last read introduces, as you must at
once have felt, a new condition of things. Generally, I have spoken of
the Ghibellines as infidel, or impious; and for the most part they
represent, indeed, the resistance of kingly to priestly power. But, in
this action of Florence, we have the rise of another force against the
Church, in the end to be much more fatal to it, that of popular
intelligence and popular passion. I must for the present, however,
return to our immediate business; and ask you to take note of the
effect, on actually existing Florentine architecture, of the political
movements of the ten years we have been studying.
133. In the revolution of Candlemas, 1248, the successful Ghibellines
throw down thirty-six of the Guelph palaces.
And in the revolution of July, 1258, the successful Guelphs throw down
_all_ the Ghibelline palaces.
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