Cities, small republics, did the same collectively--Ferrara, Padua, Verona, Mantua, Milan, Parma, Florence, Pisa, Siena, Perugia.

Both cities and citizens lived in a nervous storm, and at every impulse passed into furious activity.

In five minutes a whole town was up in the market-place, the bells rang, the town banner was displayed, and in an hour the citizens were marching out of the gates to attack the neighbouring city.

A single gibe in the streets, or at the church door, interchanged between one noble and another of opposite factions, and the gutters of the streets ran red with the blood of a hundred men.

This then was the time of _Sordello_, and splendidly has Browning represented it.
2.