The Two First Centuries of Florentine History / The Republic and Parties at the Time of Dante. Fourth Impression.

by Pasquale Villari

VII.

Corso Donati's death put an end to the tragedy of which the expulsion of the Bianchi had formed the first act; and now the condition of all Italy, as well as Florence, was changed by a new event. This was the murder of Albert of Hapsburg by his nephew, on the 1st of May, 1308. Therefore the election of a new king of the Romans and future emperor was now imminent. Philip the Beautiful aspired to win the Imperial crown, if not for himself, at least for his brother, Charles of Valois, through the help of Clement V. As the Pope was residing in France, he could not directly oppose the design, but had certainly no intention of favouring it. With the Angevins at Naples, the Holy See transferred to Avignon, and Rome in revolt against him, the choice of a French emperor would have placed him entirely at Philip's mercy. Accordingly he gave secret support to Henry of Luxembourg, who was elected to the throne as Henry VII. on the 27th of November, 1308. This emperor, born on the French frontier, and educated in France, presented a combination of Germanic and Latin characteristics. As lord of a petty State, he had no real strength or power of his own; but having great nobility of mind and an imagination disposed to mysticism, he had formed a lofty idea of the dignity and might of the universal Empire that he hoped to restore to Rome. He seemed totally unable to comprehend that the feudal union of Germany and Italy, which had missed success even at the beginning of the Middle Ages, had become totally impossible now that feudalism itself, the principal basis of the Holy Roman Empire, was almost annihilated in Italy. Nevertheless, when Henry first raised the Imperial flag, enormous hopes were conceived by the Ghibellines, and rapidly spread throughout the peninsula. All men seemed to be suddenly stirred to genuine enthusiasm.

The Ghibellines of that day were no longer the Ghibellines of old, and in Italy the conception of the Empire had undergone a total change. The hostile attitude of the Popes towards republican freedom and independence; their persistent struggle against the Roman Commune; the fact of Clement V. being at a distance, in France, and weakly dependent on the French monarch; the necessity, now beginning to be generally recognised, of building up, from the ruins of old municipalities, new forms of government, such as were now arising in France and elsewhere; the revival of classical studies, enabling men to glean from the Republic and Empire of ancient Rome some literary conception of the unity and strength of the secular State required to meet present needs;—had all combined to transform the mediæval idea of the Empire. For now that France and other countries were detached from it, the Empire was no longer universal, but simply Germanico-Roman; while to Italian eyes it was beginning, though still very vaguely, to seem a revival of the old Rome that had always been the spiritual head of the civilised world, and the possible centre of an Italian confederated State. This idea was clearly expressed for the first time in Dante's "Monarchia," which then served as the manifesto of the Ghibelline party. The same idea was afterwards more widely developed in the "Defensor Pacis" of Marsilio da Padova, and at a subsequent date inspired the fantastic enthusiasm of Cola di Rienzo. The latter's attempt—so lauded by Petrarch—to create a new Roman, Italian, Imperial Republic was a confused dream of scholastic, classico-humanistic, feudal, and mediæval ideas, but nevertheless a dream containing in embryo some vague conception of the future Italian State as it was already dimly foreseen, although with no comprehension of its real nature. Such as it was, however, this incoherent jumble of ideas became the standard of the Italian Ghibellines.

The Guelphs had no philosophical programme of their own to flaunt in return. The force of events, and the pressing need of maintaining the independence of Italian cities against Pope and emperor, was then the war-cry of the Florentine Guelphs. To Florence, the coming of the emperor signified the revival of the old Ghibelline party, consequently the revival of Arezzo, Pistoia, Pisa, and other hostile cities, all ready to compress her within a circle of steel, and strangle her commerce. For this reason she called on the Guelph cities, and all seeking to preserve freedom and escape foreign tyranny, to join in an Italian confederation, with herself at its head. It was, therefore, at this moment that the small merchant-republic initiated a true national policy, and became a great power in Italy. So, in the mediæval shape of a feudal and universal Empire, on the one hand, and in that of a municipal confederation on the other, a gleam of the national idea first began to appear, though still in the far distance and veiled in clouds. Both sides fought eagerly for the interests of the moment, and both were inspired with the presentiment of a new future; but neither discerned that this future was only to be attained by the destruction of both parties alike.

At this juncture the Pope seemed favourable to Henry VII., for he encouraged his project of going to Rome to assume the Imperial crown, and urged the Italians to accord him a good reception. Nevertheless—as the Florentines had known from the first—he could not wish to see Italy subject to the Empire, having too keen a remembrance of all that the Church had endured at the hands of Frederic II. Following, therefore, the traditional policy of the Roman Court, he simultaneously encouraged Robert of Naples, formerly Duke of Calabria, who, having succeeded to the throne at the death of King Charles II. (May 3, 1309), was naturally prepared to resist Henry's pretensions to the utmost. At first the Florentines appeared disposed to be passive lookers on, but were not deceived by the Pope's pretence of encouraging Emperor Henry. They desired a closer alliance with Clement, but he too was very resentful with regard to their past conduct, and with some reason, secretly echoed the words of Benedict XI.: "Who could imagine that those men" (the Florentines) "should presume to be sons of the Church, while fighting against her?" But nowise dismayed by this, they treated with King Robert, who still allowed them to retain the services of Captain De la Rat and his Catalan horse, and now sent them his flag in addition. With the help of this contingent the Florentines made repeated attacks on Arezzo, refusing to desist even when Henry warned them to respect that city as a fief of the Empire. Their attacks were invariably successful, and they even forced their way into the town, but were prevented from holding it by the treachery of the magnates, as it was rumoured at the time.[582] All acts and decrees of the Commune bore the heading: "In honour of Holy Church and His Majesty King Robert, and to the defeat of the German king."[583]