The Story of Perugia

by Margaret Symonds; Lina Duff Gordon

to increase Perugia’s independence of spirit, and she was very careful that no one, not even the Pope, should infringe on her rights, or dispute her authority. Her attitude towards the Church is somewhat difficult to understand. It seems to have mystified Clement IV., for he expresses his “dolorous wonder” that the Perugians, who were such devoted allies of the Holy See, could sometimes behave so wickedly towards the clergy. And, curiously enough, the Perugians, lovers of processions, of patron-saints, miracles, and all the rest, could, and did, make laws to exclude all ecclesiastics from having anything to do with their charitable institutions or donations to Churches.[9]

We find them protesting both with menaces and oaths against any usurpation of the clergy, “In the names of Christ, the Virgin, S. Ercolano, and S. Costanzo.” Even the Pope was taught a lesson, for when John XXI. in 1277 asked for some lasche from the Lake of Trasimene, the Perugians called a general council in which it was resolved that the said lasche should be sent to His Holiness, but accompanied by the syndicate in order to show the Pope that the fish was the property of the city, and a gift from its citizens merely given to him for his Good Friday dinner!

These somewhat petty hostilities did not, however, materially affect the relations between the Papacy and the citizens of Perugia, and all through the twelfth and thirteenth centuries they remained on very friendly terms with one another.

We have thought it best to give a general sketch of the growth of the city, its customs and its wars, before touching on one of the chief characteristics of its history, namely, its close connection with the Papacy. It will, therefore, be necessary to glance back over some centuries, in order to follow the steps by which the power of the Popes arose in Perugia.

At first Papal authority was purely nominal. To the small towns of Italy, living each their concentrated and oftentimes tempestuous lives apart, the great Emperors who passed down to Rome in search of crowns from the hands of Popes, must have appeared as ghosts, their documents as unsubstantial as themselves. The fact that one of these, Pepin, conceded large grants of land in Umbria, including Perugia, to a Pope who never came to look at them, must have seemed to the Perugians as little beyond a phantom transaction after all. We next hear of Charlemagne in 800 confirming an act by which Perugia, together with a number of other towns and territories, was placed under the alto dominio of the Holy See. In 962, Otto I. again confirmed the donation, but the iron hand of Papal power was not felt for many centuries in the rising town; and indeed, however deep the designs of the Church may have been from the very beginning, they were well concealed, and the first Popes who visited Perugia did so in the fashion of people starting on a summer excursion, and not at all in the character of conquerors. They would come to the city with all their suite of Cardinals and favourites, and take up their abode in the cool and spacious rooms of the Canonica, which, as Bonazzi with imperial pride declares, “became the Vatican of Perugia.”

Yet it is certain that the policy of the Holy See was deep, and that the growing capital of Umbria appeared no plaything in its eyes. The geographical position of the city—perched as it is on a hill which commands the Tiber and overlooks the two great highways from the Eternal City to the North and to the Eastern Sea—made it a most desirable possession for the Popes, and it was inevitable that Perugia should, sooner or later, submit to, or come into direct conflict with, the power of Papal rule. The open acknowledgment of such a situation was merely a question of time.

Innocent III., who has been called the founder of the States of the Church, was the first Pope who came into direct personal contact with the Perugians. He accepted from them an offer to be their Padrone, and to exercise temporal power among them. Half playfully, though with what deep and powerful designs we may divine, he called the citizens his “vassals,” and to a certain extent they were willing to submit to his authority; but in so doing they were careful to wring from their “Padrone” a promise that their rights and privileges should be respected. Thus for the time they steered clear of the danger of subjection, continued to govern themselves, and preserved that free and independent spirit which hitherto, and in spite of every obstacle, had marked them as a race. Innocent was beloved by the citizens. He came amongst them at a time of much civil discord, when the nobles and the people were preparing for open strife. “He was a peace-maker,” says Bartoli, “and he kept his eye on all things; and on this city he looked with a peculiar partiality.” The Pope was anxious to promote the Crusades, and was on his way to Pisa to try to make a peace between the Genoese and the Venetians, whose quarrels interfered with his schemes, when he fell ill at Perugia, and died there in 1216.[10]

No sooner had he breathed his last than all his Cardinals hurried into the Canonica to elect his successor, and such was the impatience of the citizens that they even set a guard over these princes of the Church, and kept them short of food in order to hurry their decision. We are not therefore surprised to read that the Papal Throne remained vacant for the space of one day only, and that in consequence of this event the Perugians claim the privilege of having invented the Conclave.