Florence dated her calamities from the insult offered by Buondelmonte dei Buondelmonti to the Amidei in a broken marriage.

Bologna never forgot the pathos of Imelda Lambertazzi stretched in death upon her lover Bonifazio Gieremei's corpse.

The story of Romeo and Juliet at Verona is a myth which brings both factions into play, the well-meaning intervention of peace-making monks, and the ineffectual efforts of the Podesta to curb the violence of party warfare.
[1] The history of Florence illustrates more clearly than that of any other town the vast importance acquired by trades and guilds in politics at this epoch of the civil wars.
[2] This is the sting of Cacciaguida's scornful lamentation over Florence Par.

xvi.
Ma la cittadinanza, ch' e or mista Di Campi e di Certaldo e di Figghine, Pura vedeasi nell' ultimo artista.
Tal fatto e fiorentino, e cambia e merca, Che si sarebbe volto a Semifonti, La dove andava l' avolo alia cerca.
Sempre la confusione delle persone Principio fu del mal della cittade, Come del corpo il cibo che s' appone.
So deep and dreadful was the discord, so utter the exhaustion, that the distracted Communes were fain at last to find some peace in tyranny.

At the close of their long quarrel with the house of Hohenstauffen, the Popes called Charles of Anjou into Italy.