Note 10 — LETTERS ON POLITICS AND WAR.
Reading edition
"But singly there I stood, when, by consent Of all, Florence had to the ground been razed, The one who openly forbade the deed."
Cary's Dante—"L'Inferno," x. II. 90-93.
Farinata degli Uberti was a noble Florentine, and the leader of the Ghibelline faction, when they obtained a signal victory over the Guelfi at Montaperto, near the river Arbia. Machiavelli calls him "a man of exalted soul, and great military talents" (Hist. of Florence, Bk. ii). Subsequently, when it was proposed that, in order to maintain the ascendency of the Ghibelline faction in Tuscany, Florence should be destroyed, Farinata alone of all the Council opposed the measure, declaring that he had endured every hardship with no other view than that of being able to pass his days in his own country. (See Cary's notes to Canto x.)