"Betrayal is the only truth that sticks."

One thing that I noticed throughout the Canto presentations were the numerous references to the Battle of Montaperti. It was a battle fought on September 4, 1260 between Florence and Siena in Tuscany. The players were the Guelphs and the Ghibelline. It is infamous for the way the Ghibelline won. A man named Bocca degli Abati was masquerading as a Guelph soldier, but was in reality a member of the Ghibelline. During the course of the battle, Bocca travelled across Ghibelline lines to their leader, Farinata degli Ubertis, at the first sign of a charge. He then snuck back across to his own "side", the Guelph, and cut down the flag bearer, resulting in mass confusion in their forces, and as a result, they fled and more than an estimated 10,000 Guelph soldiers died.
Dante places both Bocca and Farinata in his Divine Comedy. He puts Farinata in the circle of the heretics, in my own Canto, Canto X, as it was revealed years after his death that he was a disbeliever in life after death and a follower of the Greek philosopher Epicurus. He was found guilty of heresy after his death and was sentenced to a posthumous execution (I know, right?) which is basically when they dig the bodies back up and burn them and scatter among the dirt and filth and excrement of the city. Bocca was mentioned in a later Canto, in Canto XXXII, as a betrayer, seeing as he fraudulently behaved as a Guelph soldier for years before betraying the entire army to the Ghibelline in the battle. One of the reasons why Dante included two references to this battle in his comedy was because he was a member of the Guelph party, and this battle was renowned within those two circles, especially as even afterwards the two parties continued to drive each other out of the city of Florence for years tyo come, and the rivalry went deep and long for many years afterward.