He flirted back just as innocently, and then things got out of hand. A vendetta was declared between
Guelf and Gibel, two rival brothers of Pistoia, that resulted in extreme violence, the splitting of Guelf
factions into Whites and Blacks with ensuing massacres, 1,400 houses in the middle of Florence burnt,
and a feud that brought out every long-simmering antagonism from politics, to money, to envy which
lasted far longer than if the flirtation had not been as innocent as it was.