In Florence, however, the opportunities were much greater. The city had a population of perhaps forty-five thousand people (which made it larger than London), ruled by an oligarchic government generally dominated by wealthy merchant families. Like many other Italian cities, it had been plagued for most of the thirteenth century by violent civil strife, firstly between a pro-Hohenstaufen imperial faction known as the Ghibellines and a papal faction known as the Guelphs, and subsequently between parties known as the Blacks and Whites.
