303) and Franciscus Accursius, and in 1307 is understood to have been
assessor of civil causes in his native city. In that year, however,
Pistoia was disturbed by the Guelph and Ghibelline feud. The
Ghibellines, who had for some time been the stronger party, being
worsted by the Guelphs, Cino, a prominent member of the former faction,
had to quit his office and the city of his birth. Pitecchio, a
stronghold on the frontiers of Lombardy, was yet in the hands of Filippo
Vergiolesi, chief of the Pistoian Ghibellines; Selvaggia, his daughter,
was beloved by Cino (who was probably already the husband of Margherita
degli Unghi); and to Pitecchio did the lawyer-poet betake himself. It is
uncertain how long he remained at the fortress; it is certain, however,
that he was not with the Vergiolesi at the time of Selvaggia's death,
which happened three years afterwards (1310), at the Monte della
Sambuca, in the Apennines, whither the Ghibellines had been compelled to
shift their camp. He visited his mistress's grave on his way to Rome,
after some time spent in travel in France and elsewhere, and to this
visit is owing his finest sonnet. At Rome Cino held office under Louis
of Savoy, sent thither by the Ghibelline leader Henry of Luxemburg, who
was crowned emperor of the Romans in 1312. In 1313, however, the emperor
died, and the Ghibellines lost their last hope. Cino appears to have
thrown up his party, and to have returned to Pistoia. Thereafter he
devoted himself to law and letters. After filling several high judicial
offices, a doctor of civil law of Bologna in his forty-fourth year, he
lectured and taught from the professor's chair at the universities of
Treviso, Siena, Florence and Perugia in succession; his reputation and
success were great, his judicial experience enabling him to travel out
of the routine of the schools. In literature he continued in some sort
the tradition of Dante during the interval dividing that great poet from
his successor Petrarch. The latter, besides celebrating Cino in an
obituary sonnet, has coupled him and his Selvaggia with Dante and
Beatrice in the fourth _capitolo_ of his _Trionfi d' Amore_.

Cino, the master of Bartolus, and of Joannes Andreae the celebrated
canonist, was long famed as a jurist. His commentary on the statutes of
Pistoia, written within two years, is said to have great merit; while
that on the code (_Lectura Cino Pistoia super codice_, Pavia, 1483;
Lyons, 1526) is considered by