ITALIOTES.

See SICELIOTEB.

----------ITALY: Start--------

[Image: Two maps of Italy, at the beginning of the

Seventh Century, and A. D. 1492.]

ITALY:

Ancient.

Early Italians.

"It was not till the close of the Republic, or rather the

beginning of the Empire, that the name of Italy was employed,

as we now employ it, to designate the whole Peninsula, from

the Alps to the Straits of Messina.

See ROME: B. C. 275.

The term Italia, borrowed from the name of a primæval tribe

who occupied the southern portion of the land, was gradually

adopted as a generic title in the same obscure manner in which

most of the countries of Europe, or (we may say) the

Continents of the world, have received their appellations. In

the remotest times the name only included Lower Calabria: from

these narrow limits it gradually spread upwards, till about

the time of the Punic Wars, its northern boundary ascended the

little river Rubicon (between Umbria and Cisalpine Gaul), then

followed the ridge of the Appennines westward to the source of

the Macra, and was carried down the bed of that small stream

to the Gulf of Genoa. When we speak of Italy, therefore, in

the Roman sense of the word, we must dismiss from our thoughts

all that fertile country which was at Rome entitled the

provincial district of Gallia Cisalpina, and Liguria."

_H. G. Liddell,

History of Rome,

introduction, section. 2._

"Philological research teaches us to distinguish three

primitive Italian stocks, the Iapygian, the Etruscan, and that

which we shall call the Italian. The last is divided into two

main branches,—the Latin branch, and that to which the

dialects of the Umbri, Marsi, Volsci and Samnites belong. As

to the Iapygian stock, we have but little information.

{1805}

At the southeastern extremity of Italy, in the Messapian or

Calabrian peninsula, inscriptions in a peculiar extinct

language have been found in considerable numbers; undoubtedly

remains of the dialect of the Iapygians, who are very

distinctly pronounced by tradition also to have been different

from the Latin and Samnite stocks. … With the recognition of

… a general family relationship or peculiar affinity between

the Iapygians and Hellenes (a recognition, however, which by

no means goes so far as to warrant our taking the Iapygian

language to be a rude dialect of Greek), investigation must

rest content. … The middle of the peninsula was inhabited,

as far back as reliable tradition reaches, by two peoples or

rather two branches of the same people, whose position in the

Indo-Germanic family admits of being determined with greater

precision than that of the Iapygian nation. We may with

propriety call this people the Italian, since upon it rests

the historical significance of the peninsula. It is divided

into the two branch-stocks of the Latins and the Umbrians; the

latter including their southern off-shoots, the Marsians and

Samnites, and the colonies sent forth by the Samnites in

historical times. … These examples [philological examples,

given in the work, but omitted from this quotation], selected

from a great abundance of analogous phenomena, suffice to

establish the individuality of the Italian stock as

distinguished from the other members of the Indo-Germanic

family, and at the same time show it to be linguistically the

nearest relative, as it is geographically the next neighbour,

of the Greek. The Greek and the Italian are brothers; the

Celt, the German and the Slavonian are their cousins. …

Among the languages of the Italian stock, again, the Latin

stands in marked contrast with the Umbro-Samnite dialects. It

is true that of these only two, the Umbrian and the Samnite or

Oscan, are in some degree known to us. … A conjoint view,

however, of the facts of language and of history leaves no

doubt that all these dialects belonged to the Umbro-Samnite

branch of the great Italian stock. … It may … be regarded

as certain that the Italians, like the Indians, migrated into

their peninsula from the north. The advance of the

Umbro-Sabellian stock along the central mountain-ridge of

Italy, in a direction from north to south, can still be

clearly traced; indeed its last phases belong to purely

historical times. Less is known regarding the route which the

Latin migration followed. Probably it proceeded in a similar

direction along the west coast, long, in all likelihood,

before the first Sabellian stocks began to move."

_T. Mommsen,

History of Rome,

book 1, chapters 2-3._

See, also,

ETRUSCANS; LATIUM; SABINES; SAMNITES;

UMBRIANS; MAGNA GRÆCIA;

also, ROME: B. C. 343-290, and 339-338.

"In the February number of the 'Civiltà Cattolica,' Padre de

Cara pleads for a national effort on the part of Italian

archaeologists to solve the question of the origin of their

country's civilisation by the systematic exploration and

excavation of Pelasgic Italy. … In a series of articles,

extending over several years, the learned father has contended

for the identity of the Hittites and Proto-Pelasgians on

archaeological, etymological, and historical grounds; and he

here repeats that, if 'Italic' means Aryan, then it is among

the peoples speaking Oscan, Umbrian, Latin, and other dialects

of the Indo-European family that the parentage of Italian

civilisation must be sought; but that 'Italy' meant in the

first place the country of the Hittites (Hethei), and hence of

the Pelasgians, and that name and civilisation are alike

Pelasgic. Those who hold it to have been Aryan have not only

the testimony of Greek and Roman writers against them, but

also the facts that there were Pelasgians in Italy whose stone

constructions are standing to this day, and that the Etruscan

language and culture had no Aryan affinities. The writer

further points out that the walls of Pelasgic cities, whether

in Italy, Greece, or Asia Minor, all resemble each other, and

that the origin of Greek civilisation was also Pelasgian. In

Greece, as in Italy, the Aryans followed centuries after the

Hittite-Pelasgians, and Aryan Greece carried the arts of

Pelasgic Greece to perfection. He believes that, of two

migratory bands of Hittites, one invaded Greece and the other

Italy, about the same time. He also draws attention to the

coincidence that it is not very long since Greece, like Italy

at the present time, could date its civilisation no further

back than 700 or 800 B. C. Schliemann recovered centuries for

Greece, but 'Italy still remains imprisoned in the iron circle

of the seventh century.' To break it, she must follow

Schliemann's plan; and as he had steady faith in the

excavation of the Pelasgic cities and cemeteries of Greece, so

will like faith and conduct on the part of Italian

archaeologists let in light upon this once dark problem."

_Academy,

March 31, 1894, page 273._

ITALY:

Under the dominion of Rome.

See ROME.

ITALY:

Invasions Repelled by Rome.

See ROME: B. C. 390-347, 282-275; PUNIC WARS;

CIMBRI AND TEUTONES; ALEMANNI; and RADAGAISUS.

ITALY: A. D. 400-410.

Alaric's invasions.

See GOTHS (VISIGOTHS): A. D. 400-403;

and ROME: A. D. 408-410.

ITALY: A. D. 452.

Attila's invasion.

The origin of Venice.

See HUNS: A. D. 452; and VENICE: A. D. 452.

ITALY: A. D. 476-553.

The fall of the Western Roman Empire.

The Ostrogothic kingdom of Theodoric, and its fall.

Recovery of Italy by Justinian.

See ROME: A. D. 455-476, to 535-553.

ITALY: A. D. 539-553.

Frank invasions.

See FRANKS: A. D. 539-553.

ITALY: A. D. 554-800.

Rule of the Exarchs of Ravenna.

See ROME: A. D. 554-800;

and PAPACY: A. D. 728-774.

ITALY: A. D. 568-800.

Lombard conquests and kingdom.

Rise of the Papal power at Rome.

Alliance of the Papacy with the sovereigns of the Franks.

Revival of the Roman Empire under Charlemagne.

"Since the invasion of Alboin, Italy had groaned under a

complication of evils. The Lombards who had entered along with

that chief in A. D. 568 [see LOMBARDS: A. D. 568-573, and

after] had settled in considerable numbers in the valley of

the Po, and founded the duchies of Spoleto and Benevento,

leaving the rest of the country to be governed by the exarch

of Ravenna as viceroy of the Eastern crown. This subjection

was, however, little better than nominal. Although too few to

occupy the whole peninsula, the invaders were yet strong

enough to harass every part of it by inroads which met with no

resistance from a population unused to arms, and without the

spirit to use them in self-defence. … Tormented by their

repeated attacks, Rome sought help in vain from Byzantium,

whose forces, scarce able to repel from their walls the Avars

and Saracens, could give no support to the distant exarch of

Ravenna.

{1806}

The Popes were the Emperor's subjects; they it waited his

confirmation, like other bishops; they had more than once been

the victims of his anger. But as the city became more

accustomed in independence, and the Pope rose to a

predominance, real if not yet legal [see ROME: A. D. 590-640,

and PAPACY: A. D. 728-774], his tone grew bolder than that of

the Eastern patriarchs. In the controversies that had raged in

the Church, he had had the wisdom or good fortune to espouse

(though not always from the first) the orthodox side: it was

now by another quarrel of religion that his deliverance from

an unwelcome yoke was accomplished. The Emperor Leo, born

among the Isaurian mountains, where a purer faith may yet have

lingered, and stung by the Mohammedan taunt of idolatry,

determined to abolish the worship of images, which seemed fast

obscuring the more spiritual part of Christianity. An attempt

sufficient to cause tumults among the submissive Greeks,

excited in Italy a fiercer commotion. The populace rose with

one heart in defence of what had become to them more than a

symbol: the exarch was slain: the Pope, though unwilling to

sever himself from the lawful head and protector of the

Church, must yet excommunicate the prince whom he could not

reclaim from so hateful a heresy.

See ICONOCLASTIC CONTROVERSY.

Liudprand, king of the Lombards, improved his opportunity:

falling on the exarchate as the champion of images, on Rome as

the minister of the Greek Emperor, he overran the one, and all

but succeeded in capturing the other. The Pope escaped for the

moment, but saw his peril: placed between a heretic and a

robber, he turned his gaze beyond the Alps, to a Catholic

chief who had just achieved a signal deliverance for

Christendom on the field of Poitiers. Gregory II. had already

opened communications with Charles Martel, mayor of the

palace, and virtual ruler of the Frankish realm. As the crisis

becomes more pressing, Gregory III. finds in the same quarter

his only hope, and appeals to him in urgent letters, to haste

to the succour of Holy Church. … Charles died before he

could obey the call; but his son Pipin (surnamed the Short)

made good use of the new friendship with Rome. He was the

third of his family who had ruled the Franks with a monarch's

full power [see FRANKS: A. D. 511-752]: it seemed time to

abolish the pageant of Merovingian royalty; yet a departure

from the ancient line might shock the feelings of the people.

A course was taken whose dangers no one then foresaw: the Holy

See, now for the first time invoked as an international power,

pronounced the deposition of Childric, and gave to the royal

office of his successor Pipin a sanctity hitherto unknown. …

The compact between the chair of Peter and the Teutonic throne

was hardly sealed, when the latter was summoned to discharge

its share of the duties. Twice did Aistulf the Lombard assail

Rome, twice did Pipin descend to the rescue: the second time

at the bidding of a letter written in the name of St. Peter

himself. Aistulf could make no resistance; and the Frank

bestowed on the Papal chair all that belonged to the exarchate

in North Italy, receiving as the meed of his services the

title of Patrician [754]. … When on Pipin's death the

restless Lombards again took up arms and menaced the

possessions of the Church, Pipin's son Charles or Charlemagne

swept down like a whirlwind from the Alps at the call of Pope

Hadrian, seized king Desiderius in his capital, assumed

himself the Lombard crown, and made northern Italy

thenceforward an integral part of the Frankish empire [see

GERMANY: A. D. 68-800]. … For the next twenty-four years

Italy remained quiet. The government of Rome was carried on in

the name of the Patrician Charles, although it does not appear

that he sent thither any official representative; while at the

same time both the city and the exarchate continued to admit

the nominal supremacy of the Eastern Emperor, employing the

years of his reign to date documents."

_J. Bryce,

The Holy Roman Empire,

chapter 4._

"Thus, by German hands, the internal ascendancy of the German

race in Italy, which had lasted, first under the Goths, and

then under the Lombards, for 281 years, was finally broken. A

German was still king over Italy, as for ages Germans were

still to be. But Roman and native influence reconquered its

supremacy in Italy, under the management and leadership of the

bishops of Rome. The Lombards, already becoming Italianized,

melted into provincial Italians. The Teutonic language

disappeared, leaving a number of words to Italian dialects,

and a number of names to Italian families. The last king of

the Lombards bore an Italian name, Desiderius. The latest of

Italian national heroes bears the Bavarian and Lombard name of

Garibaldi. But the overthrow of the Lombards, and the gift of

provinces and cities to St. Peter had even more eventful

results. The alliance between the king of the Franks and the

bishop of Rome had become one of the closest kind. … The

German king and the Italian pope found themselves together at

the head of the modern world of the West. But the fascination

of the name of Rome still, as it had done for centuries, held

sway over the Teutonic mind. … It was not unnatural that the

idea should recommend itself, both to the king and the pope,

of reviving in the West, in close connexion with the Roman

primacy, that great name which still filled the imagination of

the world, and which in Roman judgments, Greek Byzantium had

wrongfully stolen away—the name of Cæsar Augustus, the claim

to govern the world. There was a longing in the West for the

restoration of the name and authority, 'lest,' as the

contemporary writers express it, 'the heathen should mock at

the Christian if the name of Emperor had ceased among them.'

And at this moment, the government at Constantinople was in

the hands of a woman, the Empress Irene. Charles's services to

the pope were recompensed, and his victorious career of more

than thirty years crowned, by the restoration at Rome, in his

person, of the Roman empire and the imperial dignity. The same

authority which had made him 'patrician,' and consecrated him

king, now created him Emperor of the Romans. On Christmas day,

800, when Charles came to pay his devotions before the altar

of St. Peter's, Pope Leo III.—without Charles's knowledge or

wish, so Charles declared to his biographer, Einhard, and, it

may be, prematurely, as regards Charles's own feeling—placed

a golden crown on his head, while all the people shouted, 'to

Charles, the most pious Augustus, crowned of God, the great

and peace-giving Emperor of the Romans, life and victory.' …

{1807}

Thus a new power arose in Europe, new in reality and in its

relations to society, though old in name. It was formally but

the carrying on the line of the successors of Augustus and

Constantine. But substantially it was something very

different. Its authors could little foresee its destinies; but

it was to last, in some sort the political centre of the world

which was to be, for 1,000 years. And the Roman Church, which

had done such great things, which had consecrated the new and

mighty kings of the Franks, and had created for the mightiest

of them the imperial claim to universal dominion, rose with

them to a new attitude in the world. … The coronation of

Charles at Rome, in the face of an imperial line at

Constantinople, finally determined, though it did not at once

accomplish, the separation of East and West, of Greek and

Latin Christianity. This separation had long been impending,

perhaps, becoming inevitable. … One Roman empire was still

the only received theory. But one Roman empire, with its seat

in the West, or one Roman empire, governed in partnership by

two emperors of East and West, had become impossible in fact.

The theory of its unity continued for ages; but whether the

true successor of Augustus and Theodosius sat at

Constantinople, or somewhere in the West, remained in dispute,

till the dispute was ended by the extinction of the Eastern

empire by the Turks on May 29, 1453."

_R. W. Church,

The Beginning of the Middle Ages,

chapter 7._

See, also, FRANKS: A. D. 768-814.

ITALY: A. D. 685-1014.

The founding of the duchy of Tuscany.

See TUSCANY: A. D. 685-1115.

ITALY: A. D. 781.

Erected into a separate kingdom by Charlemagne.

In the year 781 Charlemagne erected Italy and Aquitaine into

two separate kingdoms, placing his infant sons Pipin and

Ludwig on the thrones.

_P. Godwin,

History of France: Ancient Gaul,

chapter 16._

ITALY: (Southern): A. D. 800-1016.

Conflict of Greeks, Saracens and Franks.

"The southern provinces [of Italy], which now compose the

kingdom of Naples, were subject, for the most part [in the 8th

and 9th centuries], to the Lombard dukes and princes of

Beneventum—so powerful in war that they checked for a moment

the genius of Charlemagne—so liberal in peace that they

maintained in their capital an academy of thirty-two

philosophers and grammarians. The division of this flourishing

state produced the rival principalities of Benevento, Salerno,

and Capua; and the thoughtless ambition or revenge of the

competitors invited the Saracens to the ruin of their common

inheritance. During a calamitous period of two hundred years,

Italy was exposed to a repetition of wounds which the invaders

were not capable of healing by the union and tranquillity of a

perfect conquest. Their frequent and almost annual squadrons

issued from the port of Palermo and were entertained with too

much indulgence by the Christians of Naples: the more

formidable fleets were prepared on the African coasts. … A

colony of Saracens had been planted at Bari, which commands

the entrance of the Adriatic Gulf; and their impartial

depredations provoked the resentment and conciliated the union

of the two emperors. An offensive alliance was concluded

between Basil the Macedonian [of the Byzantine Empire], the

first of his race, and Lewis, the great grandson of

Charlemagne; and each party Supplied the deficiencies of his

associate. … The fortress of Bari was invested by the

infantry of the Franks and by the cavalry and galleys of the

Greeks; and, after a defence of four years, the Arabian emir

submitted [A. D. 871] to the clemency of Lewis, who commanded

in person the operations of the siege. This important conquest

had been achieved by the concord of the East and West; but

their recent amity was soon embittered by the mutual

complaints of jealousy and pride. … Whoever might deserve

the honour, the Greek emperors, Basil and his son Leo, secured

the advantage of the reduction of Bari. The Italians of Apulia

and Calabria were persuaded or compelled to acknowledge their

supremacy, and an ideal line from Mount Garganus to the Bay of

Salerno leaves the far greater part of the [modern] kingdom of

Naples under the dominion of the Eastern empire. Beyond that

line the dukes or republics of Amalfi and Naples, who had

never forfeited their voluntary allegiance, rejoiced in the

neighbourhood of their lawful sovereign; and Amalfi was

enriched by supplying Europe with the produce and manufactures

of Asia. But the Lombard princes of Benevento, Salerno, and

Capua, were reluctantly torn from the communion of the Latin

world, and too often violated their oaths of servitude and

tribute. The city of Bari rose to dignity and wealth as the

metropolis of the new theme or province of Lombardy; the title

of Patrician, and afterwards the singular name of Catapan, was

assigned to the supreme governor. … As long as the sceptre

was disputed by the princes of Italy, their efforts were

feeble and adverse; and the Greeks resisted or eluded the

forces of Germany which descended from the Alps under the

imperial standard of the Othos. The first and greatest of

those Saxon princes was compelled to relinquish the siege of

Bari: the second, after the loss of his stoutest bishops and

barons, escaped with honour from the bloody field of Crotona

(A. D. 983). On that day the scale of war was turned against

the Franks by the valour of the Saracens. … The Caliph of

Egypt had transported 40,000 Moslems to the aid of his

Christian ally. The successors of Basil amused themselves with

the belief that the conquest of Lombardy had been achieved,

and was still preserved, by the justice of their laws, the

virtues of their ministers, and the gratitude of a people whom

they had rescued from anarchy and oppression. A series of

rebellions might dart a ray of truth into the palace of

Constantinople; and the illusions of flattery were dispelled

by the easy and rapid success of the Norman adventurers."

_E. Gibbon,

Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,

chapter 56._

ITALY: A. D. 803-810.

Charlemagne's boundary treaties with the Byzantine Emperor.

Attempts of Pipin against the Venetians.

The founding of Modern Venice.

See VENICE: A. D. 697-810.

ITALY: A. D. 810-961.

Spread of Venetian commerce and naval prowess.

See VENICE: A. D. 810-961.

{1808}

ITALY: A. D. 843-951.

In the breaking up of Charlemagne's Empire.

The founding of the Holy Roman Empire.

In the partition of Charlemagne's Empire among his three

grandsons, by the treaty of Verdun, A. D. 843, Italy, together

with the new kingdom called Lotharingia, or Lorraine, was

assigned to the elder, Lothar, who bore the title of Emperor.

Lothar, who died in 855, redivided his dominions among three

sons, and Lorraine, separated from Italy, was soon dismembered

and shared between Germany and France. The Italian kingdom

fell to Louis or Ludwig II., who was crowned Emperor, and on

his death without issue, A. D. 875, it was seized, together

with the imperial title, by the French Carlovingian king,

Charles the Bald. Two years afterwards he died, and Italy,

together with the imperial crown, was acquired by the last

legitimate survivor of the German Carlovingian line, Charles

the Fat, who died in 888. "At that memorable era (A. D. 888)

the four kingdoms which this prince [Charles the Fat] had

united fell asunder: West France, where Odo or Eudes [Duke of

Paris, ancestor of the royal line of Capet] then began to

reign, was never again united to Germany; East France

(Germany) chose Arnulf; Burgundy split up into two

principalities, in one of which (Transjurane) Rudolf

proclaimed himself king, while the other (Cisjurune with

Provence) submitted to Boso; while Italy was divided between

the parties of Berengar of Friuli and Guido of Spoleto. The

former was chosen king by the estates of Lombardy; the latter,

and on his speedy death his son Lambert, was crowned Emperor

by the Pope. Arnulf's [the German king's] descent chased them

away and vindicated the claims of the Franks, but on his

flight Italy and the anti-German faction at Rome became again

free. Berengar was made king of Italy, and afterwards Emperor.

Lewis of Burgundy, son of Boso, renounced his fealty to

Arnulf, and procured the imperial dignity, whose vain title he

retained through years of misery and exile, till A. D. 928.

None of these Emperors were strong enough to rule well even in

Italy; beyond it they were not so much as recognized. … In

A. D. 924 died Berengar, the last of these phantom Emperors.

After him Hugh of Burgundy and Lothar his son reigned as kings

of Italy, if puppets in the hands of a riotous aristocracy can

be so called. Rome was meanwhile ruled by the consul or

senator Alberic [called variously senator, consul, patrician,

and prince of the Romans], who had renewed her never quite

extinct republican institutions, and in the degradation of the

papacy was almost absolute in the city." Affairs in Italy were

at this stage when Otto or Otho, the vigorous and chivalrous

German king of the new line, came in 951 to re-establish and

reconstitute the Roman Empire of Charlemagne and to make it a

lasting entity in European politics—the "Holy Roman Empire"

of modern history.

_J. Bryce,

The Holy Roman Empire,

chapter 6._

See GERMANY: A. D. 936-973.

ALSO IN:

_F. Guizot,

History of Civilization,

lecture 24._

_E. Gibbon,

Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,

chapter 49._

See, also,

ROME: A. D. 903-964;

and ROMAN EMPIRE, THE HOLY: A. D. 963.

ITALY: A. D. 900-924.

Ravaged by the Hungarians.

"The vicinity of Italy had tempted their early inroads; but

from their camp on the Brenta they beheld with some terror the

apparent strength and populousness of the new-discovered

country. They requested leave to retire; their request was

proudly rejected by the Italian king; and the lives of 20,000

Christians paid the forfeit of his obstinacy and rashness.

Among the cities of the West the royal Pavia was conspicuous

in fame and splendour; and the pre-eminence of Rome itself was

only derived from the relies of the apostles. The Hungarians

appeared; Pavia was in flames; forty-three churches were

consumed; and, after the massacre of the people, they spared

about 200 wretches who had gathered some bushels of gold and

silver (a vague exaggeration) from the smoking ruins of their

country. In these annual excursions from the Alps to the

neighbourhood of Rome and Capua, the churches that yet escaped

resounded with a fearful litany: 'Oh! save and deliver us from

the arrows of the Hungarians!' But the saints were deaf or

inexorable; and the torrent rolled forward, till it was

stopped by the extreme land of Calabria."

_E. Gibbon,

Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,

chapter 55._

ITALY: A. D. 961-1039.

Subjection to Germany.

"Otho I., his son Otho II., and his grandson Otho III., were

successively acknowledged emperors and kings of Italy, from

961 to 1002. When this branch of the house of Saxony became

extinct, Henry II. of Bavaria, and Conrad the Salic of

Franconia, filled the throne from 1004 to 1039. During this

period of nearly eighty years, the German emperors twelve

times entered Italy at the head of their armies, which they

always drew up in the plains of Roncaglia near Placentia;

there they held the states of Lombardy, received homage from

their Italian feudatories, caused the rents due to be paid,

and promulgated laws for the government of Italy. A foreign

sovereign, however, almost always absent, known only by his

incursions at the head of a barbarous army, could not

efficaciously govern a country which he hardly knew, and where

his yoke was detested. … The emperors were too happy to

acknowledge the local authorities, whatever they were,

whenever they could obtain from them their pecuniary dues:

sometimes they were dukes or marquises, whose dignities had

survived the disasters of various invasions and of civil wars;

sometimes the archbishops and bishops of great cities, whom

Charlemagne and his successors had frequently invested with

duchies and counties escheated to the crown, reckoning that

lords elected for life would remain more dependent than

hereditary lords; sometimes, finally, they were the

magistrates themselves, who, although elected by the people,

received from the monarch the title of imperial vicars, and

took part with the nobles and prelates in the Plaids

(placita), or diets of Roncaglia. After a stay of some months,

the emperor returned with his army into Germany; the nobles

retired to their castles, the prelates and magistrates to

their cities: neither of these last acknowledged a superior

authority to their own, nor reckoned on any other force than

what they could themselves employ to assert what they called

their rights. Opposite interests could not fail to produce

collision, and the war was universal."

_J. C. L. de Sismondi,

History of the Italian Republics,

chapter 1._

{1809}

During the reign of Henry II. (A. D. 1002-1024), against whom

a rival king of Italy was set up by the Italians, "there was

hardly any recognised government, and the Lombards became more

and more accustomed, through necessity, to protect themselves,

and to provide for their own internal police. Meanwhile the

German nation had become odious to the Italians. The rude

soldiery, insolent and addicted to intoxication, were engaged

in frequent disputes with the citizens, wherein the latter, as

is usual in similar cases, were exposed first to the summary

vengeance of the troops, and afterwards to penal chastisement

for sedition. In one of these tumults, at the entry of Henry

II. in 1004, the city of Pavia was burned to the ground, which

inspired its inhabitants with a constant animosity against

that emperor. Upon his death, in 1024, the Italians were

disposed to break once more their connexion with Germany,

which had elected as sovereign Conrad duke of Franconia. They

offered their crown to Robert king of France and to William

duke of Guienne." But neither of these princes would accept

the troublesome diadem; and, in the end, the archbishop of

Milan and other Lombard lords "repaired to Constance and

tendered the crown to Conrad, which he was already disposed to

claim as a sort of dependency upon Germany. It does not appear

that either Conrad or his successors were ever regularly

elected to reign over Italy; but whether this ceremony took

place or not, we may certainly date from that time the

subjection of Italy to the Germanic body. It became an

unquestionable maxim, that the votes of a few German princes

conferred a right to the sovereignty of a country which had

never been conquered, and which had never formally recognised

this superiority."

_H. Hallam,

The Middle Ages,

chapter 3, part 1 (volume 1)._

"The Italian Kingdom of the Karlings, the kingdom which was

reunited to Germany under Otto the Great, was … a

continuation of the old Lombard kingdom. It consisted of that

kingdom, enlarged by the Italian lands which fell off from the

Eastern Empire in the eighth century; that is by the Exarchate

and the adjoining Pentapolis, and the immediate territory of

Rome itself."

_E. A. Freeman,

Historical Geography of Europe,

chapter 8, section 3._

ITALY: (Southern): A. D. 1000-1090.

Conquests and settlement of the Normans.

"A pilgrimage first took the Normans to Southern Italy, where

they were to found a kingdom. Here there were, if I may so

speak, three wrecks, three ruins of nations—Lombards in the

mountains, Greeks in the ports, Sicilian and African Saracens

rambling over the coasts. About the year 1000, some Norman

pilgrims assist the inhabitants of Salerno to drive out a

party of Arabs, who were holding them to ransom. Being well

paid for the service, these Normans attract others of their

countrymen hither. A Greek of Bari, named Melo or Meles, takes

them into pay to free his city from the Greeks of Byzantium.

Next they are settled by the Greek republic of Naples at the

fort of Aversa, which lay between that city and her enemies,

the Lombards of Capua (A. D. 1026). Finally, the sons of a

poor gentleman of the Cotentin, Tancred of Hauteville, seek

their fortune here. Tancred had twelve children; seven by the

same mother. It was during William's [the Conqueror's]

minority, when numbers of the barons endeavoured to withdraw

themselves from the Bastard's yoke, that these sons of

Tancred's directed their steps towards Italy, where it was

said that a simple Norman knight had become count of Aversa.

They set off penniless, and defrayed the expenses of their

journey by the sword (A. D. 1037?). The Byzantine governor, or

Katapan, engaged their services, and led them against the

Arabs. But their countrymen beginning to flock to them, they

no sooner saw themselves strong enough than they turned

against their paymasters, seized Apulia [A. D. 1042], and

divided it into twelve countships. This republic of

Condottieri held its assemblies at Melphi. The Greeks

endeavoured to defend themselves, but fruitlessly. They

collected an army of 60,000 Italians; to be routed by the

Normans, who amounted to several hundreds of well-armed men.

The Byzantines then summoned their enemies, the Germans, to

their aid; and the two empires, of the East and West,

confederated against the sons of the gentleman of Coutances.

The all-powerful emperor, Henry the Black (Henry III.),

charged Leo IX., who had been nominated pope by him, and who

was a German and kin to the imperial family, to exterminate

these brigands. The pope led some Germans and a swarm of

Italians against them [1053]; but the latter took to flight at

the very beginning of the battle, and left the warlike pontiff

in the hands of the enemy. Too wary to ill-treat him, the

Normans piously cast themselves at their prisoner's feet, and

compelled him to grant them, as a fief of the Church, all that

they had taken or might take possession of in Apulia,

Calabria, and on the other side of the strait; so that, in

spite of himself, the pope became the suzerain of the kingdom

of the Two Sicilies (A. D. 1052-1053)."

_J. Michelet,

History of France,

book 4, chapter 2._

The two elder of the sons of Tancred were now dead, and the

third son, Humphrey, died not long after. A fourth brother,

Robert, surnamed Guiscard, who had lately arrived from

Normandy with reinforcements, then established himself (A. D.

1057) with some difficulty in the leadership and succession.

"He accomplished the reduction of almost all the country which

composes the present kingdom of Naples, and, extinguishing the

long dominion of the Beneventine Lombards and of the eastern

empire in Italy [see BENEVENTUM, and AMALFI], finally received

from Pope Nicholas II. the confirmation of the titles which he

had assumed, of duke of Calabria and Apulia [A. D. 1080]. …

While Robert Guiscard was perfecting his dominion on the

continent, his younger brother Roger engaged in the

astonishing design of conquering the large and beautiful

island of Sicily from the Saracens with a few Norman

volunteers. An air of romantic extravagance breathes over all

the enterprises of the Normans in Italy; and, even if we

discard the incredible tales which the legends and chronicles

of the times have preserved of the valour and corporeal

strength of these northern warriors, enough will remain in the

authentic results of their expeditions to stagger the reason

and warm the imagination with attractive visions of chivalrous

achievement. … We are assured that 300 Christian knights

were the greatest number which Roger could for many years

bring into the field; and that 136 routed a prodigious host of

Saracens at the battle of Ceramio. … But the Saracens were

embroiled in internal discord, and their island was broken up

into numerous petty states; we may, therefore, attribute to

their dissensions a great part of the success which the

chroniclers of the Normans have assigned to their good swords

alone. Roger had, however, embarked in an arduous and

laborious undertaking, which it required the unbending

perseverance and patient valour of thirty years [A. D.

1060-1090] to accomplish. … At length, all Sicily bowed to

his sway; Norman barons were infeuded over its surface; and

Roger, with the title of great count, held the island as a

fief of his brother's duchy."

_G. Proctor,

History of Italy,

chapter 2, part 2._

ALSO IN:

_E. Gibbon,

Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,

chapter 56._

_J. W. Barlow,

Short History of the Normans in South Europe,

chapters 1-7._

{1810}

ITALY: A. D. 1056-1122.

Beginning of the conflict of the Popes with the Emperors.

Hildebrand and Henry IV.

The War of Investitures.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1056-1122;

and GERMANY: A. D. 973-1122.

ITALY: A. D. 1056-1152.

The rise of the republican cities.

"The war of investitures, which lasted more than sixty years,

accomplished the dissolution of every tie between the

different members of the kingdom of Italy. Civil wars have at

least this advantage,—that they force the rulers of the

people to consult the wishes of their subjects, oblige them to

gain affections which constitute their strength, and to

compensate, by the granting of new privileges, the services

which they require. The prelates, nobles, and cities of Italy

obeyed, some the emperor, others the pope; not from a blind

fear, but from choice, from affection, from conscience,

according as the political or religious sentiment was

predominant in each. The war was general, but everywhere waged

with the national forces. Every city armed its militia, which,

headed by the magistrates, attacked the neighbouring nobles or

towns of a contrary party. While each city imagined it was

fighting either for the pope or the emperor, it was habitually

impelled exclusively by its own sentiments: every town

considered itself as a whole, as an independent state, which

had its own allies and enemies; each citizen felt an ardent

patriotism, not for the kingdom of Italy, or for the empire,

but for his own city. At the period when either kings or

emperors had granted to towns the right of raising

fortifications, that of assembling the citizens at the sound

of a great bell, to concert together the means of their common

defence, had been also conceded. This meeting of all the men

of the state capable of bearing arms was called a parliament.

It assembled in the great square, and elected annually two

consuls, charged with the administration of justice at home,

and the command of the army abroad. … The parliament, which

named the consuls, appointed also a secret council, called a

Consilio di Credenza, to assist the government, composed of a

few members taken from each division; besides a grand council

of the people, who prepared the decisions to be submitted to

the parliament. … As industry had rapidly increased, and had

preceded luxury,—as domestic life was sober, and the produce

of labour considerable,—wealth had greatly augmented. The

citizens allowed themselves no other use of their riches than

that of defending or embellishing their country. It was from

the year 900 to the year 1200 that the most prodigious works

were undertaken and accomplished by the towns of Italy. …

These three regenerating centuries gave an impulse to

architecture, which soon awakened the other fine arts. The

republican spirit which now fermented in every city, and gave

to each of them constitutions so wise, magistrates so zealous,

and citizens so patriotic, and so capable of great

achievements, had found in Italy itself the models which had

contributed to its formation. The war of investitures had

given wing to this universal spirit of liberty and patriotism

in all the municipalities of Lombardy, in Piedmont, Venetia,

Romagna, and Tuscany. But there existed already in Italy other

free cities. … Venice, … Ravenna, … Genoa, … Pisa, …

Rome, Gaëta, Naples, Amalfi, Bari, were either never conquered

by the Lombards, or in subjection too short a time to have

lost their ancient walls, and the habit of guarding them.

These cities served as the refuge of Roman civilization. …

Those cities which had accumulated the most wealth, whose

walls inclosed the greatest population, attempted, from the

first half of the twelfth century, to secure by force of arms

the obedience of such of the neighbouring towns as did not

appear sufficiently strong to resist them, … to force them

in to a perpetual alliance, so as to share their good or evil

fortune, and always place their armed force under the standard

of the dominant city. … Two great towns in the plains of

Lombardy surpassed every other in power and wealth: Milan,

which habitually directed the party of the church; and Pavia,

which directed that of the empire. Both towns, however, seem

to have changed parties during the reigns of Lothario III. and

Conrad II., who, from the year 1125 to 1152 placed in

opposition the two houses of Guelphs and Ghibelines in

Germany. … Among the towns of Piedmont, Turin took the lead,

and disputed the authority of the counts of Savoy, who called

themselves imperial vicars in that country. … The family of

the Veronese marquises, … who from the time of the Lombard

kings had to defend the frontier against the Germans, were

extinct; and the great cities of Verona, Padua, Vicenza,

Treviso, and Mantua, nearly equal in power, maintained their

independence. Bologna held the first rank among the towns

south of the Po. … Tuscany, which had also had its powerful

marquises, saw their family become extinct with the countess

Matilda, the contemporary and friend of Gregory VII. Florence

had since risen in power, destroyed Fiesole, and … was

considered the head of the Tuscan league; and the more so that

Pisa at this period thought only of her maritime expeditions.

… Such was the state of Italy, when the Germanic diet,

assembled at Frankfort in 1152, conferred the crown on

Frederick Barbarossa, duke of Swabia, and of the house of

Hohenstaufen."

_J. C. L. de Sismondi,

History of the Italian Republics,

chapters 1-2._

ALSO IN:

_E. A. Freeman,

Historical Geography of Europe,

chapter 8, section 3._

_W. K. Williams,

The Communes of Lombardy

(Johns Hopkins University Studies, 9th series, 5-6)._

_H. Hallam,

The Middle Ages,

chapter 3, part 1 (volume 1)._

_Europe during the Middle Ages

(Lardner's Cabinet Cyclop.,

volume 1, chapter 1)._

See, also,

FLORENCE: 12TH CENTURY.

ITALY: A. D. 1063.

Birth of Pisan architecture.

See PISA: A. D. 1063-1293.

ITALY: A. D. 1077-1102.

Countess Matilda's donation to the Holy See.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1077-1102.

{1811}

ITALY: (Southern): A. D. 1081-1194.

Robert Guiscard's invasions of the Eastern Empire.

Union of Sicily with Apulia, and creation of the Kingdom of

the Two Sicilies, or Naples.

"The success of his brother [Roger, in Sicily—see above:

A. D. 1000-1090] furnished another spur to the ambition of

Robert Guiscard. Taking advantage of a dynastic revolution at

Constantinople, he and his son Bohemund commenced a series of

invasions of the Eastern Empire [see BYZANTINE EMPIRE: A. D.

1081-1085] which only ended with his death. These, though

unsuccessful in their ultimate result, were influential causes

of the first crusade, and deeply affected the relations of East

and West for years to come. Meanwhile in Sicily Roger had been

succeeded by his son [Roger II.], and, in 1127, this heir of

the destinies of his race added the dukedom of Apulia to that

of Sicily, obtained from Pope Anacletus the title of king, and

finally established the Norman kingdom of Naples [also called

the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies]. His character is thus

described by a contemporary chronicler: 'He was a lover of

justice and most severe avenger of crime. He abhorred lying;

did everything by rule, and never promised what he did not

mean to perform. He never persecuted his private enemies; and

in war endeavoured on all occasions to gain his point without

shedding of blood. Justice and peace were universally observed

throughout his dominions.' During his reign the intercourse

between England and Sicily was close. The government was

organized on principles very similar to that of England. …

Under his wise rule and that of his immediate successors, the

south of Italy and Sicily enjoyed a transient gleam of

prosperity and happiness. Their equal and tolerant government,

far surpassing anything at that day in Europe, enabled the

Saracen, the Greek, and the Italian to live together in

harmony elsewhere unknown. Trade and industry flourished, the

manufacture of silk enriched the inhabitants, and the kingdom

of Naples was at peace until she was crushed under the iron

heel of a Teutonic conqueror."

_A. H. Johnson,

The Normans in Europe,

chapter 6._

ALSO IN:

_E. A. Freeman,

The Normans at Palermo

(Historical Essays, 3d series)._

_J. W. Barlow,

Short History of the Normans in South Europe,

chapters 8-11._

ITALY: A. D. 1096-1102.

The First Crusades.

See CRUSADES: A. D. 1096-1099; and 1101-1102.

ITALY: A. D. 1138.

The accession of the Hohenstaufens to the Imperial throne, and

the origin, in Germany, of the Guelf and Ghibelline factions.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1138-1268.

ITALY: A. D. 1154-1162.

The first and second expeditions of Frederick Barbarossa.

Frederick I., the second of the emperors of the Hohenstaufen

line, called by the Italians Frederick Barbarossa (Red beard),

was elected king at Frankfort in March, 1152. In October,

1154, he crossed the Alps and entered Italy with a strong

German army, having two purposes in view:

1. To receive the imperial crown, from the hands of the Pope,

and to place on his own head, at Pavia, the iron crown of

Lombardy or Italy.

2. To reduce to order and submission the rising city-republics

of Lombardy and Tuscany, which had been growing rapidly in

independence and power during the last four troubled imperial

reigns.

At Roncaglia, he held the diet of the kingdom, and listened to

many complaints, especially against Milan, which had undoubtedly

oppressed the weaker towns of its neighbourhood and abused its

strength. Then he moved through the country, making a personal

inspection of affairs, and giving a taste of his temper by

burning the villages which failed to supply provisions to his

troops with satisfactory promptitude. At Tortona he ordered

the inhabitants to renounce their alliance with the Milanese.

They refused, and endured in the upper portion of the city a

siege of two months. Forced by want of water to surrender, at

last, they were permitted to go free, but their town was

sacked and burned. Asti, Chieri, Rosate, and other places of

more or less importance, were destroyed. Frederick did not

venture yet to attack Milan, but proceeded to Rome, demanding

the imperial crown. The pope (Adrian IV.) and the Romans were

alike distrustful of him, and he was not permitted to bring

his army into the city. After no little wrangling over

ceremonious details, and after being compelled to lead the

horse and to hold the stirrup of the haughty pontiff,

Barbarossa was finally crowned at St. Peter's, in the Vatican

suburb. The Romans attempted to interrupt the coronation, and

a terrible tumult occurred in which a thousand of the citizens

were slain. But the Germans made no attempt to take possession

of the city. On the contrary, they withdrew with haste, and

the emperor led his army back to Germany, burning Spoleto on

the way, because it failed in submissiveness, and marking a

wide track of ruin and desolation through Italy as he went.

This was in the summer of 1155. Three years passed, during

which the Italian cities grew more determined in their

independence, the emperor and his German subjects more bitter

in hostility to them, and the pope and the emperor more

antagonistic in their ambitions. In 1158 Frederick led a

second expedition into Italy, especially determined to make an

end of the contumacy of Milan. He began operations by creating

a desert of blackened country around the offending city, being

resolved to reduce it by famine. Mediators, however, appeared,

who brought about a treaty of pacification, which interrupted

hostilities for a few weeks. Then the Milanese found occasion

to accuse the emperor of a treacherous violation of the terms

of the treaty and again took up arms. The war was now to the

death. But, before settling to the siege of Milan, Frederick

gave himself the pleasure, first, of reducing the lesser city

of Crema, which continued to be faithful among the allies of

the Milanese. He held some children of the town in his hands,

as hostages, and he bound them to the towers which he moved

against the walls, compelling the wretched citizens to kill

their own offspring in the act of their self-defense. By such

atrocities as this, Crema was taken, at the end of seven

months, and destroyed. Then Milan was assailed and

beleaguered, harassed and blockaded, until, at the beginning

of March, 1162, the starved inhabitants gave up their town.

Frederick ordered the doomed city "to be completely evacuated,

so that there should not be left in it a single living being.

On the 25th of March, he summoned the militias of the rival

and Ghibeline cities, and gave them orders to rase to the

earth the houses as well as the walls of the town, so as not

to leave one stone upon another. Those of the inhabitants of

Milan whom their poverty, labour and industry attached to the

soil, were divided into four open villages, built at a

distance of at least two miles from the walls of their former

city. Others sought hospitality in the neighbouring towns of

Italy. …

{1812}

Their sufferings, the extent of their sacrifices, the

recollection of their valour, and the example of their noble

sentiments, made proselytes to the cause of liberty in every

city into which they were received." Meantime Frederick

Barbarossa returned to Germany, with his fame as a puissant

monarch much augmented.

_J. C. L. de Sismondi,

History of the Italian Republics,

chapter 2._

ALSO IN:

_U. Balzani,

The Popes and the Hohenstaufen,

chapters 3-5._

_G. B. Testa,

History of the War of Frederick I.

against the Communes of Lombardy,

books 1-6._

_E. A. Freeman,

Frederick the First, King of Italy

(Historical Essays, 1st series)._

ITALY: A. D. 1163-1164.

Third visitation of Frederick Barbarossa.

The rival Popes.

Frederick Barbarossa entered Italy for the third time in 1163,

without an army, but imposingly escorted by his German nobles.

He imagined that the country had been terrorized sufficiently

by the savage measures of his previous visitation to need no

more military repression. But he found the Lombard cities

undismayed in the assertion of their rights, and drawing

together in unions which had never been possible among them

before. The hostility of his relations with the Papacy and

with the greater part of the Church gave encouragement to

political revolt. His quarrel with Pope Hadrian had been ended

by the death of the latter, in 1159, but only to give rise to

new and more disturbing contentions. It had grown so bitter

before Hadrian died that the Pope had allied himself by treaty

with Milan, Crema, and other cities resisting Frederick, and

had promised to excommunicate the emperor within forty days.

Sudden death frustrated the combination. At the election of

Hadrian's successor there was a struggle of factions, each

determined to put its representative in the papal chair, and

each claiming success. Two rival popes were proclaimed and

consecrated, one under the name of Alexander III., the other

as Victor IV. Frederick recognized the latter, who made

himself the emperor's creature. The greater part of

Christendom soon gave its recognition to the former, although

he had been driven to take refuge in France. Pope Alexander

excommunicated Frederick and Frederick's pope, and Pope Victor

retorted like anathemas. Whether the curses of Alexander were

more effectual, or for other reasons, the authority of Victor

dwindled, and he himself presently died (April 1164), while

Frederick was making his third inspection of affairs in Italy.

The emperor found it impossible to execute his unbending will

without an army. Verona, Vicenza, Padua, and Treviso held a

congress and openly associated themselves for common defense.

Frederick attempted to make use of the militia forces of

Pavia, Cremona, and other Ghibelline towns against them; but

he found even these citizen-soldiers so mutinous with

disaffection that he dared not pursue the undertaking. He

returned to Germany for an army more in sympathy with his

obstinate designs against Italian liberty.

_U. Balzani,

The Popes and the Hohenstaufen,

chapters 4-5._

ALSO IN:

_H. H. Milman,

History of Latin Christianity,

book 8, chapters 7-8._

_G. B. Testa,

History of the War of Frederick I. against

the Communes of Lombardy,

book 7._

ITALY: A. D. 1166-1167.

The fourth expedition of Frederick Barbarossa.

The League of Lombardy.

"When Frederick, in the month of October, 1166, descended the

mountains of the Grisons to enter Italy [for the fourth time]

by the territory of Brescia, he marched his army directly to

Lodi, without permitting any act of hostility on the way. At

Lodi, he assembled, towards the end of November, a diet of the

kingdom of Italy, at which he promised the Lombards to redress

the grievances occasioned by the abuses of power by his

podestas, and to respect their just liberties; he was desirous

of separating their cause from that of the pope and the king

of Sicily; and to give greater weight to his negotiation, he

marched his army into central Italy. … The towns of the

Veronese marches, seeing the emperor and his army pass without

daring to attack them, became bolder: they assembled a new

diet, in the beginning of April, at the convent of Pontida,

between Milan and Bergamo. The consuls of Cremona, of Bergamo,

of Brescia, of Mantua and Ferrara met there and joined those

of the marches. The union of the Guelphs and Ghibellines, for

the common liberty, was hailed with universal joy. The

deputies of the Cremonese, who had lent their aid to the

destruction of Milan, seconded those of the Milanese villages

in imploring aid of the confederated towns to rebuild the city

of Milan. This confederation was called the League of

Lombardy. The consuls took the oath, and their constituents

afterwards repeated it, that every Lombard should unite for

the recovery of the common liberty; that the league for this

purpose should last twenty years; and, finally, that they

should aid each other in repairing in common any damage

experienced in this sacred cause, by anyone member of the

confederation: extending even to the past this contract for

reciprocal security, the league resolved to rebuild Milan. The

militias of Bergamo, Brescia, Cremona, Mantua, Verona, and

Treviso, arrived the 27th of April, 1167, on the ground

covered by the ruins of this great city. They apportioned

among themselves the labour of restoring the inclosing walls;

all the Milanese of the four villages, as well as those who

had taken refuge in the more distant towns, came in crowds to

take part in this pious work; and in a few weeks the new-grown

city was in a state to repel the insults of its enemies. Lodi

was soon afterwards compelled, by force of arms, to take the

oath to the league; while the towns of Venice, Placentia,

Parma, Modena, and Bologna voluntarily and gladly joined the

association."

_J. C. L. de Sismondi,

History of the Italian Republics,

chapter 2._

Meantime Frederick Barbarossa had made himself master of the

city of Rome. The Roman citizens had boldly ventured out to

meet his German army and its allies on the Tusculan hills and

had suffered a frightful defeat. Then some part of the walls

of the Leonine City were carried by assault and the

castellated church of St. Peter's was entered with ax and

sword. Two German archbishops were among the leaders of the

force which took the altars of the temple by storm and which

polluted its floors with blood. Frederick's new 'anti-pope,

Paschal III., successor to Victor IV., was now enthroned, and

the empress was formally crowned in the apostolic basilica.

Pope Alexander, who had been in possession of the city,

withdrew, and the victorious emperor appeared to have the

great objects of his burning ambition within his grasp.

"Destiny willed otherwise. It was now August; the sun was

burning the arid Campagna and oppressing the weary German

troops. A slight rain came to refresh them, but the following

day sudden destruction fell upon the camp.

{1813}

Deadly fever attacked the army with terrible violence and

reduced it daily. The men fell in heaps, and when struck down

in the morning were dead by night. The disease took stronger

hold owing to the superstitious fears of the army and the idea

of divine vengeance, for the soldiers remembered in terror the

profanation of St. Peter's, and they felt the keen edge of the

destroying angel's sword. Decimated, dismayed, demoralised,

the imperial army was hopelessly defeated, and Frederick was

compelled to strike his tents and fly before the in visible

destroyer. … The flower of his troops lay unburied in the

furrows, and with difficulty could he manage to carry back to

their native land the bodies of his noblest and trustiest

knights. Never perhaps before had Frederick given proofs of

such unshaken strength of mind. … He returned to Germany

alone and almost a fugitive, his bravest knights dead, his

army destroyed, and leaving behind him a whole nation of proud

and watchful enemies. He returned alone, but his spirit was

undaunted and dreamt of future victory and of final revenge."

_U. Balzani,

The Popes and the Hohenstaufen,

chapter 5._

ALSO IN:

_J. Miley,

History of the Papal States,

book 6, chapter 2._

_H. H. Milman,

History of Latin Christianity,

book 8, chapter 10._

_G. B. Testa,

History of the War of Frederick I.,

books 8-9._

ITALY: A. D. 1174-1183.

The last expedition of Frederick Barbarossa.

The Battle of Legnano, and the Peace of Constance.

It was not until 1174—seven years after his flight from the

Roman pestilence—that Barbarossa was able to return to Italy

and resume his struggle with Pope Alexander and the Lombard

cities. He had been detained by troubles in Germany—the

growing quarrel with his most powerful vassal, Henry the Lion,

of Saxony, more particularly. Meantime, the League of the

Lombard cities had spread and gained strength, and Pope

Alexander III. was in active co-operation with it. To better

fortify the frontiers of Lombardy, the League had built a

strong new city, at the junction of the Tanaro and Bormida,

had given it an immediate population of 15,000 people and had

named it Alessandria, after the Pope. "The Emperor, whose

arrival in Italy was urgently implored, was retained in

Germany by his mistrust of Henry the Lion, who, in order to

furnish himself with a pretext for refusing his assistance in

the intended campaign without coming to an open breach,

undertook a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, A. D. 1171; whence, after

performing his devotions at the holy sepulchre, without

unsheathing his sword in its defence, he returned to his

native country. … At length, in 1174, Frederick Barbarossa

persuaded the sullen duke to perform his duty in the field,

and for the fourth time [with an army] crossed the Alps. A

terrible revenge was taken upon Susa, which was burnt to the

ground. Alexandria [Alessandria] withstood the siege. The

military science of the age, every 'ruse de guerre,' was

exhausted by both the besiegers and the besieged, and the

whole of the winter was fruitlessly expended without any

signal success on either side. The Lombard league meanwhile

assembled an immense army in order to oppose Frederick in the

open field, whilst treason threatened him on another side. …

Henry also at length acted with open disloyalty, and declared

to the emperor, who lay sick at Chiavenna, on the lake of

Como, his intention of abandoning him; and, unshaken by

Frederick's exhortation in the name of duty and honour to

renounce his perfidious plans, offered to provide him with

money on condition of receiving considerable additions to his

power in Germany, and the free imperial town of Goslar in

gift. … Frederick, reduced to the alternative of either

following his insolent vassal, or of exposing himself and his

weakened forces to total destruction by remaining in his

present position, courageously resolved to abide the hazard,

and to await the arrival of fresh reinforcements from Germany;

the Lombards, however, saw their advantage, and attacked him

at Legnano, on the 29th of May, 1176. The Swabians (the

southern Germans still remaining true to their allegiance)

fought with all the courage of despair, but Berthold von

Zähringen was taken prisoner, the emperor's horse fell in the

thickest of the fight, his banner was won by the 'Legion of

Death,' a chosen Lombard troop, and he was given up as dead.

He escaped almost by a miracle, whilst his little army was

entirely overwhelmed."

_W. Menzel,

History of Germany,

chapter 151._

After the disastrous battle of Legnano, Frederic "was at

length persuaded, through the mediation of the republic of

Venice, to consent to a truce of six years, the provisional

terms of which were all favourable to the league. … At the

expiration of the truce Frederic's anxiety to secure the crown

for his son overcame his pride, and the famous Peace of

Constance [A. D. 1183] established the Lombard republics in

real independence. By the treaty of Constance the cities were

maintained in the enjoyment of all the regalian rights,

whether within their walls or in their district, which they

could claim by usage. Those of levying war, of erecting

fortifications, and of administering civil and criminal

justice, were specially mentioned. The nomination of their

consuls, or other magistrates, was left absolutely to the

citizens; but they were to receive the investiture of their

office from an imperial legate. The customary tributes of

provision during the emperor's residence in Italy were

preserved; and he was authorized to appoint in every city a

judge of appeal in civil causes. The Lombard league was

confirmed, and the cities were permitted to renew it at their

own discretion; but they were to take every ten years an oath

of fidelity to the emperor. This just compact preserved, along

with every security for the liberties and welfare of the

cities, as much of the imperial prerogatives as could be

exercised by a foreign sovereign consistently with the

people's happiness. … The Peace of Constance presented a

noble opportunity to the Lombards of establishing a permanent

federal union of small republics. … But dark, long-cherished

hatreds, and that implacable vindictiveness which, at least in

former ages, distinguished the private manners of Italy,

deformed her national character. … For revenge she threw

away the pearl of great price, and sacrificed even the

recollection of that liberty which had stalked like a majestic

spirit among the ruins of Milan."

_H. Hallam,

The Middle Ages,

chapter 3, part 1 (volume 1)._

ALSO IN:

_U. Balzani,

The Popes and the Hohenstaufen,

chapter 6._

_G. B. Testa,

History of the War of Frederick I.,

book 10._

See, also,

VENICE: A.D. 1177.

{1814}

A. D. 1183-1250.

Frederick II. and the end of the Hohenstaufen struggles.

After the settlement of the Peace of Constance, Frederick

Barbarossa made no further attempt to destroy the now well

established liberties of the north Italian cities. On the

contrary, he devoted himself, with considerable success, to

the regaining of their confidence and good-will, as against

the papacy, with which his relations were not improved. In

southern Italy, he acquired an important footing by the

marriage of his son Henry (already crowned King of Rome, as

Henry VI.), to Constance, the sole heiress of the Norman

kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Soon after which he went

crusading to the Holy Land, and perished in Asia Minor (A. D.

1190). His son and successor, Henry VI., who survived him but

seven years, was occupied so much in securing the Kingdom of

the Two Sicilies, already fallen to his wife (1194) by the

death of the last of the Norman kings, that he had little time

to trouble the peace of Lombardy or Germany. He was one of the

meanest of kings, faithless and cold-blooded,—brutal to the

Normans of the Sicilies and contemptible in his treatment of

the English King Richard, when his vassal of Austria made a

chance captive of the lion-hearted prince. He died in 1197,

leaving as his heir a son but four years old—the Frederick

II. of later years. There was war at once. Two rival kings

were elected in Germany, by the two factions, Guelf and

Ghibelline. The next year, one of them, Philip I., the

Ghibelline, a younger son of Frederick Barbarossa, was

assassinated; the other, Otho IV., a son of Henry the Lion,

was recognized by his opponents, and went to Rome to claim the

imperial crown. He received it, but soon quarrelled, as all

his predecessors had done, with the pope (the great pope

Innocent III. being now on the throne), and, Guelf as he was,

began to put himself in alliance with the Ghibellines of

Italy. Meantime, the boy Frederick had become king of the Two

Sicilies by the death of his mother, and Pope Innocent was his

guardian. He was now brought forward by the latter as a

claimant of the Germanic crown, against Otho, and was sent

into Germany to maintain his claim. The civil war which

followed was practically ended by the battle of Bouvines (July

27, 1214—see BOUVINES) in which Otho's cause was lost. Four

years after, the latter died, and Frederick reigned in

Germany, Italy and the Two Sicilies, without a rival, holding

the three separate crowns for five years before he received

the imperial crown, in 1220. Meantime Innocent III. died, and

Frederick became involved, even more bitterly than his father

or his grandfather had been, in quarrels with the succeeding

popes. He was a man far beyond his age in intellectual

independence (see GERMANY: A. D. 1138-1268) and freedom from

superstitious servility to the priesthood. His tastes were

cultivated, his accomplishments were many. He welcomed the

refinements which Europe at that time could borrow from the

Saracens, and his court was one of gaiety and splendor. His

papal enemies execrated him as a heretic, a blasphemer and an

"apocalyptic beast." His greatest original offenses had grown

out of two promises which he made in his youth:

1. To lead a crusade for the recovery of Jerusalem,—which he

was slow in fulfilling;

2. To resign his Italian possessions to his son, retaining

only the sovereignty of Germany for himself,—which promise he

did not fulfil at all.

The war of the Church against him was implacable, and he was

under its ban when he died. The pope even pursued him with

maledictions when he went, at last, upon his crusade, in 1228,

and when he did, by negotiations, free Jerusalem for a time

from the Moslems (see CRUSADES: A. D. 1216-1229). He was

involved, moreover, in conflicts with the Lombard cities (see

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT: MEDIÆVAL LEAGUE) which the papacy

encouraged and stimulated, and, in 1236, he won a great

victory over the League, at Cortenuova, capturing the famous

"Carroccio" of the Milanese and sending it as a gift to the

Roman Senate. But, attempting to use his victory too

inflexibly, he lost the fruits of it, and all his later years

were years of trouble and disastrous war—disastrous to Italy

and to himself. He died on the 13th of December 1250. "Out of

the long array of the Germanic successors of Charles, he

[Frederick II.] is, with Otto III., the only one who comes

before us with a genius and a frame of character that are not

those of a Northern or a Teuton. There dwelt in him, it is

true, all the energy and knightly valour of his father Henry

and his grandfather Barbarossa. But along with these, and

changing their direction, were other gifts, inherited perhaps

from his Italian mother and fostered by his education among

the orange-groves of Palermo—a love of luxury and beauty, an

intellect refined, subtle, philosophical. Through the mist of

calumny and fable it is but dimly that the truth of the man

can be discerned, and the outlines that appear serve to

quicken rather than appease the curiosity with which we regard

one of the most extraordinary personages in history. A

sensualist, yet also a warrior and a politician; a profound

lawgiver and an impassioned poet; in his youth fired by

crusading fervour, in later life persecuting heretics while

himself accused of blasphemy and unbelief; of winning manners

and ardently beloved by his followers, but with the stain of

more than one cruel deed upon his name, he was the marvel of

his own generation, and succeeding ages looked back with awe,

not unmingled with pity, upon the inscrutable figure of the

last Emperor who had braved all the terrors of the Church and

died beneath her ban, the last who had ruled from the sands of

the ocean to the shores of the Sicilian sea. But while they

pitied they condemned. The undying hatred of the Papacy threw

round his memory a lurid light; him and him alone of all the

imperial line, Dante, the worshipper of the Empire, must

perforce deliver to the flames of hell."

_J. Bryce,

The Holy Roman Empire,

chapter 13._

"The Emperor Frederick was a poet who could not only celebrate

the charms of his sovereign lady, 'the flower of all flowers,

the rose of May,' but could also exhibit his appreciation for

the beauties of nature. … Frederick also delighted in

sculpture, painting, and architecture. … Under his fostering

influence every branch of learning was starting into life

after the slumber of ages. Frederick's age can only be

compared to that glorious era of the Renaissance, when the sun

of learning, no longer shorn of his beams, poured a flood of

light over the dark places of Europe. Frederick was not only

distinguished for his love of polite literature, but also for

his ardour in the pursuit of scientific knowledge. He was

himself an author on medical subjects.

{1815}

He was a great patron of natural history. He used his friendly

relations with eastern kings to form a collection of animals

not often seen in Europe—the elephant, camel, giraffe, and

camelopard. He also wrote a treatise on Hawking, which is

still cited with respect. He classifies birds, and treats

generally of their habits. … But poetry and science were

very far from occupying all the thoughts of this distinguished

monarch. His great concern was the internal regulation of the

kingdom committed to his charge. His code in Sicily and Naples

was framed with the special view of securing equal rights to

all classes of his subjects, and of delivering them from the

yoke of the feudal oppressor. He stripped the nobles and

prelates of their jurisdiction in criminal cases. He also

decreed that any count or baron, carrying on war on his own

account, should lose his head and his goods. These were

amazing strides in the right direction, but the former was

quite unprecedented in feudal kingdoms. Many justiciaries were

appointed throughout the kingdom. No one might hold this

office without the authorisation of the crown. He strove to

make his officials as righteous as he was himself. He himself

came before his courts. So great was his love of justice, that

he would rather lose his cause than win it if he were in the

wrong. No advocates were allowed to practise without an

examination by the judicial bench. They were obliged to take

an oath that they would allege nothing against their

conscience. The court furnished widows, orphans, and the poor

with champions free of expense. The law, by which it was

guided, endeavoured to secure an even-handed administration of

justice."

_A. B. Pennington,

The Emperor Frederick II.

(Royal Historical Society, Transactions, new series,

volume 1)._

Although arbitrary and despotic in temper, the political

intelligence of Frederick led him to practical ideas of

government which were extraordinarily liberal for his age. In

his Sicilian kingdom "the towns were shorn to a great extent

of their local privileges, but were taught to unite their

strength for the common good. Twice, at least, in the course

of his reign, in 1232 and in 1240, Frederick summoned their

deputies to a conference or Parliament, 'for the weal of the

Kingdom and the general advantage of the State.' Forty-seven

cities, all belonging to the Imperial domain, sent two

deputies each to the Assembly convoked, which must not be

confounded with the Solemn Courts held by the Sovereign and

his Barons for the purpose Of revising charters, enacting

Constitutions, and regulating the government. We should be

mistaken in supposing that the Sicilian Parliament enjoyed

much of the power implied by the name. There is no trace of

any clamour against grievances, of any complaints against

officials, or of any refusal to grant supplies. The only

function of the deputies summoned seems to have been the

assessing of the public burdens. The Emperor demanded a

certain sum of money, and the deputies, meekly complying,

regulated the ways and means of raising it. 'Send your

messengers,' thus runs the writ, 'to see the Serenity of our

face on your behalf, and to bring you back our will.' Later in

the century, the Assembly acquired greater authority. It is

just possible that Simon de Montfort, who is known to have

visited the Imperial Court, may have borrowed his famous

improvement on the old English constitution from an Apulian

source; the gathering of the Commons at Foggia certainly

preceded their first meeting at Westminster by thirty years.

Other countries besides our own were indebted to Frederick for

a better mode of legislation. Shortly after his death, many of

his innovations were borrowed by his cousin Alonzo the Wise,

and were inserted in Las Siete Partidas, the new Code of

Castile. The ideas of the Suabian Emperor were evidently the

model followed by St. Louis and his successors; in France, as

well as in Southern Italy, the lawyer was feeling his way

towards the enjoyment of the power wielded of old by the

knight and the churchman; Philip the Fair was able to carry

out the projects which Frederick had merely been able to

sketch. The world made rapid strides between 1230 and 1300.

The Northern half of Italy, distracted by endless struggles,

was not insensible to the improvements introduced into the

South by her mighty son. But in the North two fatal obstacles

existed, the Papal power and the municipal spirit of the

various States, which marred all Frederick's efforts in behalf

of Italian unity." Frederick's court was the most brilliant

and refined in Europe. Mr. Kington, his historian, introduces

us to one of the Emperor's banquets, in the following

description: "A great variety of strangers meet at the

banqueting hour. Ambassadors from the Greek Monarch arrive

with a present of falcons. Some clerical visitors from Germany

are astounded to find themselves seated close to the turbaned

men of the East, and shudder on hearing that these are envoys

from the Sultan of Cairo and the Old Man of the Mountain. The

honest Germans whisper among themselves some remarks on the

late end of the Duke of Bavaria, who was stabbed at Kelheim by

a man, suspected to be an assassin, employed by the mysterious

Old Man on Frederick's behalf. The Emperor himself eats and

drinks very little. He is the very model of a host. … The

Emperor, it must be allowed, is rather loose in his talk.

Speaking of his late Crusade, he remarks: 'If the God of the

Jews had seen my Kingdom, the Terra di Lavoro, Calabria,

Sicily, and Apulia, he would not have so often praised that

land which he promised to the Jews and bestowed upon them.'

The Bishops treasure up this unlucky speech, which will one

day be noised abroad all over Italy. When the meal is over,

the company are amused by the feats of some of the Almehs,

brought from the East. Two young Arab girls of rare beauty

place themselves each upon two balls in the middle of the flat

pavement. On these they move backwards and forwards, singing

and beating time with cymbals and castanets, while throwing

themselves into intricate postures. Games and musical

instruments, procured for the Empress, form part of the

entertainment. We hear moreover of a Saracen dancer from

Aquitaine. Such sports are relished by the guests quite as

much as the Greek wine and the viands prepared by Berard the

Court cook, who is famous for his scapece; this dish,

consisting of fish boiled in salt water and sprinkled with

saffron, popular to this day in the province of Lecce, has

been derived from Apicius. … The Emperor now shows his

guests the wild beasts, which he has brought from Africa and

the East. There is the huge elephant, soon to be sent to

Cremona, the bearer of the Imperial banner, guarded by a troop

of Saracens.

{1816}

There is the female camelopard, called Seraph by the Arabs and

Italians. Next come the camels and dromedaries which carry the

Emperor's treasures when he is on the march. Lions, leopards,

panthers, and rare birds form part of the collection, and are

tended by Saracen keepers. Frederick perhaps wishes to show

his friends some sport in the Apulian plains; he has hawks of

all breeds, each of which has its name; but what most

astonishes strangers is his method of bringing down the deer.

The cheetahs, or hunting leopards of the East, are mounted on

horseback behind their keepers; these animals, as the Emperor

says, 'know how to ride.' He is a strict preserver of game; he

gives orders that the wolves and foxes, which prey upon the

small animals in his warren at Melazzo, be destroyed by means

of a poison called wolf's powder. He has many parks and

fishponds, to which he contrives to attend, even in the midst

of Lombard wars. He directs the plantation of woods, and when

a storm blows down his trees, the timber is to be sold at

Naples. … The treasures, with which Frederick dazzles the

eyes of his visitors, rival those of Solomon. The Sultan of

Egypt has given his Christian brother a tent of wonderful

workmanship, displaying the movements of the sun and moon, and

telling the hours of the day and night. This prodigy, valued

at 20,000 marks, is kept at Venosa. There is also a throne of

gold, decked with pearls and precious stones, doomed to become

the prey of Charles of Anjou and Pope Clement. There are

purple robes embroidered with gold, silks from Tripoli, and

the choicest works of the Eastern loom. Frederick charms the

ears of his guests with melodies played on silver trumpets by

black slaves, whom he has had trained. He himself knows how to

sing. Travellers, jesters, poets, philosophers, knights,

lawyers, all find a hearty welcome at the Apulian Court; if

they are natives of the Kingdom they address its Lord in the

customary second person singular, 'Tu, Messer.' He can well

appreciate the pretensions of each guest, since he is able to

converse with all his many subjects, each in his own tongue.

The Arab from Palestine, the Greek from Calabria, the Italian

from Tuscany, the Frenchman from Lorraine, the German from

Thuringia, find that Cæsar understands them all. With Latin,

of course, he is familiar. Very different is Frederick from

his Northern grandsire, who could speak nothing but German and

very bad Latin. Troubadour, Crusader, Lawgiver; German by

blood, Italian by birth, Arab by training; the pupil, the

tyrant, the victim of Rome; accused by the world of being by

turns a Catholic persecutor, a Mohammedan convert, an Infidel

freethinker; such is Frederick the Second. His character has

been sketched for us by two men of opposite politics,

Salimbene the Guelf and Jamsilla the Ghibelline, both of whom

knew him well. Each does justice to the wonderful genius of

the Emperor, and to the rapid development of the arts and

commerce under his fostering care. But all is not fair,

whatever appearances may be. Every generation of the

Hohenstaufen Kaisers seemed to add a vice to the shame of

their house. Cruelty is the one dark stain in the character of

Barbarossa; cruelty and treachery mar the soaring genius of

Henry the Sixth; cruelty, treachery, and lewdness are the

three blots that can never be wiped away from the memory of

Frederick the Second. He has painted his likeness with his own

hand. His Registers with their varied entries throw more light

upon his nature than any panegyrics or diatribes can do. One

example will be enough. If he wishes to get an impregnable

castle into his hands, he thus writes to his

general:—'Pretend some business, and warily call the

Castellan to you; seize on him if you can, and keep him till

he cause the castle to be surrendered to you.' … Frederick's

cruelty is indisputable. His leaden copes, which weighed down

the victims of his wrath until death came to the rescue, were

long the talk of Italy and are mentioned by Dante."

_T. L. Kington,

History of Frederick the Second, Emperor of the Romans,

volume 1, chapter 9._

"After the death of Frederick II., an interval of twenty-three

years passed without the appointment of a king of the Romans

[the Great Interregnum—see GERMANY: A. D. 1250-1272], and an

interval of sixty years without the recognition of an emperor

in Italy." Frederick's son Conrad, whom he had caused to be

crowned, was driven out of Germany and died in 1254. Another

son, Manfred, acquired the crown of Sicily and reigned for a

time; but the unrelenting pope persuaded Charles of Anjou to

make a conquest of the kingdom, and Manfred was slain in

battle (A. D. 1266). Conrad's young son, Conradin, then

attempted to recover the Sicilian throne, but was defeated,

taken prisoner, and perished on the scaffold (1268). He was

the last of the Hohenstaufen.

_O. Browning,

Guelfs and Ghibellines,

chapters 2-3._

ALSO IN:

_J. Bryce,

The Holy Roman Empire,

chapters 11-13._

_E. A. Freeman,

The Emperor Frederick the Second

(Historical Essays, volume 1, Essay 10)._

_Mrs. W. Busk,

Mediæval Popes, Emperors, Kings, and Crusaders,

book 4 (volumes 3-4)._

ITALY: A. D. 1198-1216.

The establishing of Papal Sovereignty in the

States of the Church.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1198-1216.

ITALY: 13th Century.

Political conditions which prepared the way for the despots.

"The struggle between the Popes and the Hohenstaufen left

Italy in a political condition which differed essentially from

that of the other countries of the West. While in France,

Spain, and England the feudal system was so organised that, at

the close of its existence, it was naturally transformed into

a unified monarchy, and while in Germany it helped to

maintain, at least outwardly, the unity of the empire, Italy

had shaken it off almost entirely. The Emperors of the

fourteenth century, even in the most favourable case, were no

longer received and respected as feudal lords, but as possible

leaders and supporters of powers already in existence; while

the Papacy, with its creatures and allies, was strong enough

to hinder national unity in the future, not strong enough

itself to bring about that unity. Between the two lay a

multitude of political units—republics and despots—in part

of long standing, in part of recent origin, whose existence

was founded simply on their power to maintain it. In them for

the first time we detect the modern political spirit of

Europe, surrendered freely to its own instincts, often

displaying the worst features of an unbridled egoism,

outraging every right, and killing every germ of a healthier

culture.

{1817}

But, wherever this vicious tendency is overcome or in any way

compensated, a new fact appears in history—the state as the

outcome of reflection and calculation, the state as a work of

art. This new life displays itself in a hundred forms, both in

the republican and in the despotic states, and determines

their inward constitution, no less than their foreign policy.

… The internal condition of the despotically governed states

had a memorable counterpart in the Norman Empire of Lower

Italy and Sicily, after its transformation by the Emperor

Frederick II. Bred amid treason and peril in the neighbourhood

of the Saracens, Frederick, the first ruler of the modern type

who sat upon a throne, had early accustomed himself, both in

criticism and action, to a thoroughly objective treatment of

affairs. His acquaintance with the internal condition and

administration of the Saracenic states was close and intimate;

and the mortal struggle in which he was engaged with the

Papacy compelled him, no less than his adversaries, to bring

into the field all the resources at his command. Frederick's

measures (especially after the year 1231) are aimed at the

complete destruction of the feudal state, at the

transformation of the people into a multitude destitute of

will and of the means of resistance, but profitable in the

utmost degree to the exchequer. He centralised, in a manner

hitherto unknown in the West, the whole judicial and political

administration by establishing the right of appeal from the

feudal courts, which he did not, however, abolish, to the

imperial judges. No office was henceforth to be filled by

popular election, under penalty of the devastation of the

offending district and of the enslavement of its inhabitants.

Excise duties were introduced; the taxes, based on a

comprehensive assessment, and distributed in accordance with

Mohammedan usages, were collected by those cruel and vexatious

methods without which, it is true, it is impossible to obtain

any money from Orientals. Here, in short, we find, not a

people, but simply a disciplined multitude of subjects. …

The internal police, and the kernel of the army for foreign

service, was composed of Saracens who had been brought over

from Sicily to Nocera and Luceria—men who were deaf to the

cry of misery and careless of the ban of the Church. At a

later period the subjects, by whom the use of weapons had long

been forgotten, were passive witnesses of the fall of Manfred

and of the seizure of the government by Charles of Anjou; the

latter continued to use the system which he found already at

work. At the side of the centralising Emperor appeared an

usurper of the most peculiar kind: his vicar and son-in-law,

Ezzelino da Romano. … The conquests and usurpations which

had hitherto taken place in the Middle Ages rested on real or

pretended inheritance and other such claims, or else were

effected against unbelievers and excommunicated persons. Here

for the first time the attempt was openly made to found a

throne by wholesale murder and endless barbarities, by the

adoption, in short, of any means with a view to nothing but

the end pursued. None of his successors, not even Cæsar

Borgia, rivalled the colossal guilt of Ezzelino; but the

example once set was not forgotten. … Immediately after the

fall of Frederick and Ezzelino, a crowd of tyrants appeared

upon the scene. The struggle between Guelph and Ghibelline was

their opportunity. They came forward in general as Ghibelline

leaders, but at times and under conditions so various, that it

is impossible not to recognise in the fact a law of supreme

and universal necessity."

_J. Burckhardt,

The Renaissance in Italy,

part 1, chapter 1, (volume 1)._

ITALY: A. D. 1215.

The beginning, at Florence, the causes and the meaning of the

strife of the Guelfs and Ghibellines.

"In the year 1215 it chanced that a quarrel occurred at a

festival between some young nobles of Florence. It was an

event of as frivolous, and apparently unimportant, a character

as thousands of other such broils; but this obscure quarrel

has been treated by the whole body of Florentine historians as

the origin and starting point of that series of civil wars

which shaped the entire future fortunes of the community, and

shook to its centre the whole fabric of society throughout

central Italy. The story of it has become memorable therefore

in Florentine annals, and has been rendered famous not only by

the writers of history, but by many generations of poets,

painters, novelists, and sculptors." Briefly sketched, the

story is this: A handsome youth of the Buondelmonti family,

mixing in a quarrel at the festival alluded to, struck one

Oddo Arringhi dei Fifanti with his poniard. Common friends of

the two brought about a reconciliation, by means of an

arrangement of marriage between Buondelmonte and a niece of

the injured man. But the lady was plain, and Buondelmonte,

falling madly in love with another, more charming, whom evil

chance and a scheming mother threw temptingly in his way, did

not scruple to break his engagement, and to do it with insult.

He wedded his new love, who was of the Donati family, on

Easter Day, and on that same day he was slain by the Amidei,

whose house he had so grossly affronted. "The assassins

retired to their fortress houses, and left the bridal party to

form itself as it might into a funeral procession. 'Great was

the uproar in the city. He was placed on a bier; and his wife

took her station on the bier also, and held his head in her

lap, violently weeping; and in that manner they carried him

through the whole of the city; and on that day began the ruin

of Florence.' The last phrase of the above citation marks the

significance which the Tuscan historians have attributed to

this incident, and the important place that has always been

assigned to it in Florentine history. We are told by all the

earliest historians, especially by Malispini, in whose

childhood these events must have happened, and whom Villani

copies almost word for word, that from this quarrel began the

great, fatal, and world-famous division of Florence into the

parties of Guelph and Ghibelline. Dante goes so far as to

consider the conduct of Buondelmonte in this affair so

entirely the cause of the evils that arose from the Guelph and

Ghibelline wars, that, had that cause not existed, no such

misfortunes would have arisen. … Yet the historians admit

that the party names of Guelph and Ghibelline were known in

Florence long before; but they say that not till then did the

city divide itself into two hostile camps under those rallying

cries. It is curiously clear, from the accounts of Malispini

and Villani, that, as usual in such matters, the Florentines

had but a very hazy notion as to the meaning and origin of the

two names [see GUELFS AND GHIBELLINES, and GERMANY: A. D.

1138-1268], for the sake of which they were prepared to cut

each other's throats.

{1818}

Any name or watchword is good enough for a party rallying cry,

when once passions have been connected with it; but the

Florentines understood that Ghibelline meant attachment to the

Empire in opposition to the Church, and Guelph attachment to

the Church in opposition to the Empire. … But the quarrel of

Guelph with Ghibelline in Florence was the expression of a

still wider spread and more perennial conflict. … The

Ghibellines were the old Imperial nobles, who, whether more

anciently or more recently incorporated into the body of

Florentine citizens, formed the aristocracy of the social

body, and were naturally Imperialist in their sympathies.

These Ghibellines were the high Tories of the Florentine

community. The body of the people were Guelphs, naming

themselves after the party professing attachment to the Church

only because the Papacy was in opposition to the Empire. The

Guelphs were the Whigs of Florence. The Radicals appeared on

the scene in due time and normal sequence." From Florence, as

its center, the strife of the two factions spread throughout

Italy. "Ghibellinism was nearly universal in the north of

Italy, divided among a number of more or less well known great

families, of whom the principal were the Visconti at Milan,

and the Della Scala at Verona. Naples and the States of the

Church were Guelph; the former, as need hardly be suggested,

from political circumstances, from opposition to the Empire,

and from connection, rather than from principle. Tuscany and

the whole of Central Italy were divided between the two,

although the real strength and stronghold of genuine Guelphism

was there. Without Florence, there would have been no Guelph

party. Had those stout sandalled and leather-jerkined

Florentine burghers of the 13th century not undertaken and

persevered in that crusade against the feudal nobles and the

Ghibelline principle, which … was the leading occupation and

idea of the Commonwealth during all that century, Ghibellinism

and Imperialism would have long since possessed and ruled

Italy from the Alps to the toe of the boot."

_T. A. Trollope,

History of the Commonwealth of Florence,

book 1, chapter 3,

and book 3, chapter 1 (volume 1)._

"One party called themselves the Emperor's liegemen, and their

watchword was authority and law; the other side were the

liegemen of Holy Church, and their cry was liberty; and the

distinction as a broad one is true. But a democracy would

become Ghibelline, without scruple, if its neighbour town was

Guelf; and among the Guelf liegemen of the Church and liberty,

the pride of blood and love of power were not a whit inferior

to that of their opponents. Yet … it is not impossible to

trace in the two factions differences of temper, of moral and

political inclinations, which, though visible only on a large

scale and in the mass, were quite sufficient to give meaning

and reality to their mutual opposition. … The Ghibellines as

a body reflected the worldliness, the license, the irreligion,

the reckless selfishness, the daring insolence, and at the

same time the gaiety and pomp, the princely magnificence and

generosity and largeness of mind of the House of Swabia [the

Hohenstaufen]; they were the men of the court and camp. …

The Guelfs, on the other hand, were the party of the middle

classes; they rose out of and held to the people; they were

strong by their compactness, their organisation in cities,

their commercial relations and interests, their command of

money. Further, they were professedly the party of strictness

and religion. … The genuine Guelf spirit was austere,

frugal, independent, earnest, religious; fond of its home and

Church, and of those celebrations which bound together Church

and home; … in its higher form intolerant of evil, but

intolerant always of whatever displeased it. Yet there was a

grave and noble manliness about it which long kept it alive in

Florence."

_R. W. Church,

Dante and other Essays,

pages 15-18._

See, also,

FLORENCE: A. D. 1215-1250.

ITALY: A. D. 1236-1259.

The tyranny of Eccelino di Romano in the Veronese or Trevisan

Marches, and the crusade against him.

See VERONA: A. D. 1236-1259.

ITALY: A. D. 1248-1278.

The wars of a generation of the Guelfs and Ghibellines in

Tuscany.

See FLORENCE: A. D. 1248-1278.

ITALY: (Southern): A. D. 1250-1268.

Invasion and conquest of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies by

Charles of Anjou, on the invitation of the Pope.