PERENNIAL STRIFE OF GUELFS AND GHIBELLINES
[1257-1261 A.D.]
The bitter enmity between the two parties of the Guelfs and Ghibellines was fatal to the cause of liberty. With the former, the question was religion—the independence of the church and of Italy, menaced by the Germans and Saracens, to whom Manfred granted not less confidence than Frederick II; with the latter, honour and good faith towards an illustrious family, and the support of the aristocracy as well as of royalty; but both were more intent on avenging offences a thousand times repeated, and guarding against exile, and the confiscation of property.
These party feelings deeply moved men who gloried in the sacrifices which they or their ancestors had made to either party; while they regarded as entirely secondary the support of the laws, the impartiality of the tribunals, or the equal participation of the citizens in the sovereignty. Every town of Lombardy forgot itself, to make its faction triumph; and it looked for success in giving more unity and force to power. The cities of Mantua and Ferrara, where the Guelfs were far the more numerous, trusted for their defence, the one to the count di San Bonifazio, the other to the marquis d’Este, with so much constancy, that these nobles, under the name of captains of the people, had become almost sovereigns. In the republic of Verona, the Ghibellines, on the contrary, predominated; and as they feared their faction might sink at the death of Ezzelino, they called to the command of their militia, and the presidency of their tribunals, Mastino della Scala; lord of the castle of that name in the Veronese territory; whose power became hereditary in his family. The marquis Pelavicino, the most renowned Ghibelline in the whole valley of the Po, whose strongest castle was San Donnino, between Parma and Piacenza, and who had formed and disciplined a superb body of cavalry, was named, alternately with his friend, Buoso da Doara, lord of the city of Cremona. Pavia and Piacenza also chose him almost always their captain; and this honour was at the same time conferred on him by Milan, Brescia, Tortona, and Alexandria. The Ghibelline party had, since the offence given by Innocent IV to the Guelfs of Milan, obtained the ascendency in Lombardy. The house of Della Torre seemed even to lean towards it; and it was all powerful in Tuscany. The city of Lucca had been the last to accede to that party in 1263; and the Tuscan Guelfs, obliged to leave their country, had formed a body of soldiers, which placed itself in the pay of the few cities of Lombardy still faithful to the Guelf party.
The court of Rome saw, with great uneasiness, this growing power of the Ghibelline party, firmly established in the Two Sicilies, under the sceptre of Manfred. Feared even in Rome and the neighbouring provinces, master in Tuscany, and making daily progress in Lombardy, Manfred seemed on the point of making the whole peninsula a single monarchy. It was no longer with the arms of the Italians that the pope could expect to subdue him. The Germans afforded no support. Divided between Richard of Cornwall and Alfonso of Castile, they seemed desirous of delivering themselves from the imperial authority, by dividing between foreigners an empty title; while each state sought to establish a separate independence at home, and abandon the supremacy of the empire over Italy. It was accordingly necessary to have recourse to other barbarians to prevent the formation of an Italian monarchy fatal to the power of the pontiff. Alexander IV died on the 25th of May, 1261; three months afterwards, a Frenchman, who took the name of Urban IV, was elected his successor; and he did not hesitate to arm the French against Manfred.