Families of merchants rose upon the ruins of the old nobility.

Roman cities of industry reduced their military rivals of earlier or later origin to insignificance.

The plain, the river, and the port asserted themselves against the mountain fastness and the barrackburgh.

The several classes of society, triturated, shaken together, leveled by warfare and equalized by industry, presented but few obstacles to the emergence of commanding personalities, however humble, from their ranks.

Not only had the hierarchy of feudalism disappeared; but the constitution of the city itself was confused, and the Popolo, whether 'primo' or 'secondo or even 'terzo,' was diluted with recently franchised Contadini and all kinds of 'novi homines.'[2] The Divine Comedy, written after the culmination of the Guelf and Ghibelline dissensions, yields the measure of their animosity.