The Bianchi are called the Parte selvaggia , because its leaders, the Cerchi, came from the forest lands of Val di Sieve. The other party, the Neri, were led by the Donati.

The following account of these factions is from Giovanni Fiorentino, a writer of the fourteenth century; Il Pecorone , Gior. XIII Nov. I , in Roscoe’s Italian Novelists , I 327:⁠—