The Story of Perugia

by Margaret Symonds; Lina Duff Gordon

Honorius III. succeeded Innocent, and he attempted, but without success, to heal the ever-widening breach between the nobles and the people. We have described something of the wars outside, but Perugia herself within her walls was a veritable wasp’s nest during this period of her steady rise. Her inhabitants became more restless and unmanageable every year. In their perpetual broils the nobles fought beneath their emblem of the Falcon, and the popolo minuto (common folk), who sided with them, received the unamiable title of Beccherini.[11] The two extremes in the social scale joined hands in a perpetual opposition to the popolo grasso (well-to-do burghers), who were called Raspanti (raspare, to claw), a name probably suggested by their emblem of the Cat.

Honorius in his plan of dealing with the complicated situation can scarcely be described as disinterested; whilst apparently patching up peace, he really attempted to force an acknowledgment of papal power. His policy however, was fruitless, and the nobles resorted to the usual expedient of retiring to their country castles, for, as Bonazzi says, they “preferred to tyrannise alone in the silence of their isolated strongholds rather than to divide their forces in the capital of a powerful federation.” But the situation threatened to become intolerable, and we read that through the years from 1223 to 1228 a “perfect pandemonium reigned in and about the city.” Cardinal Colonna was sent to try and restore the balance between the rival factions, but, finally, Gregory IX. was forced to come in person, and through his influence the banished nobles were recalled from exile, and a certain degree of peace restored.

Gregory paid many visits to Perugia, much to the annoyance of the Romans, who expressed their wonder that the little hill-town with nothing but its brown walls, towers, and landscape to recommend it, should be preferred by him to the plains and palaces of the Eternal City. This fact is recorded about the year 1228, when Gregory IX. was making an unusually long stay in his excellent and quiet quarters in the Canonica (at S. Lorenzo). The Romans were well aware, Bartoli says, that it was because of their ill-behaviour that he had retired into private life far away in the Umbrian city, and they even accepted as a judgment on their evil ways a certain most horrible inundation of the Tiber which befell them at that period. Deputies hurried across the land from Rome with supplications to the Pope to return to his people, and Gregory went, but he quickly returned to Perugia. The fame of S. Francis of Assisi was then at its height. Gregory felt inquisitive, but not altogether certain of the truth of the tales which were spread abroad concerning this wonderful man. He made numerous enquiries and sent his Cardinals to Assisi to gather all the information they were able to collect about the Saint. But the final manner of the doubting Pope’s conversion is described with such marvellous and touching piety in the “Fioretti” that we have inserted it at length in our description of the place where it occurred.[12] In the same year and place Gregory canonized S. Francis, “to the splendour of religion,” says one historian. He also canonized S. Dominic and Queen Elizabeth of Hungary, he sent missions into the land of the unfaithful, and gave indulgences of a year and forty days to all who would give money to the building of S. Domenico. So we may fairly say that he did not waste his time, but that he managed to get through a large amount of business during the time that he spent in Perugia.

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It is difficult to define the exact mutual relations of Pope and city in any corner of Italy, but it is certain that Perugia found Papal power useful to her in many ways, and that on whatever side she happened to have a quarrel on hand, she always turned to the Papal See for help and arbitration. In spirit she was always Guelph, fighting under the emblem of the Guelph lion, and full of Guelph interests. Yet, although openly exercising self-government, almost in the manner of a free republic, under the protection and nominal rule of the popes, she was at the same time patronised by the emperors. In 1355 we read that her ancient privileges were confirmed and new ones granted by the Emperor Charles IV., who seems to have considered it worth his while to gain the friendship of her citizens.

Up to this period we have only had to deal with pleasant passing visits of the popes who sojourned in the city for a while. The time came, however, when the noose which Innocent had so lightly cast about their necks began to pull and tighten. The Perugians revolted hotly against the Popes of Avignon, who, incensed at their rebellion, attempted to check it by every means in their power. To understand the painful struggles which follow, it is necessary to remember that the end of the fourteenth and the whole of the fifteenth centuries were the most prosperous period in Perugia’s history. She had grown steadily and uninterruptedly both in power and riches, and in spite of terrible obstacles, ever since the day when the Romans rebuilt her walls more than fifteen hundred years before. In these two centuries she erected her public buildings, extended and settled her government, coined money, started her university, settled with her habitual promptitude all suspicion of rebellion, became one of the Tre Communi of Florence, Siena and Perugia, and whilst achieving all these things she continued to foster the passionate feuds and hopeless enmities between the different factions which we have described above. Having grown strong and prosperous it was natural that she should resent any open attempt of a foreign power to subject her, and such an attempt came in the middle of the fourteenth century from the Papal See.

In 1367 the Spanish Cardinal Albornoz was busily employed in recovering the States of the Church. Perugia was at that time faithful to the Pope, and she received the Cardinal with due honours and gave him valuable help, especially in an expedition against Galeotto Malatesta of Rimini. Her goodwill however was of short duration, for the citizens saw themselves despoiled of Città di Castello and of Assisi during the Cardinal’s campaigns, and this they would not brook. They therefore sent a strong army at once towards Viterbo, but it was beaten back with heavy loss, and Urban V.’s authority was again firmly rooted at Perugia. He sent his brother, Cardinal Angelico, Bishop of Albano, as Vicar General to represent him in the city. Thus the authority of the popes crept in upon the town, and authority of some kind became every year more necessary as the voice of the people grew and strengthened and as the exiled nobles quarrelled outside the walls. Papal authority was finally represented in 1375 by an imperious French abbot, known in Perugian annals as Mommaggiore, whose doings and buildings have been described in another place. ([See pp. 184-186].) The yoke that Mommaggiore—“that French Vandal, that most iniquitous Nero,” as the chroniclers call him,—put upon the neck of Perugia, proved unbearable to every party, and all the different factions for once joined together to break it. Florence and other cities, castles, and fortresses which had “unfurled the banner of liberty,” joined in the revolt, and in 1375 the abbot was driven in a very undignified fashion from the city. A republic was then declared and the whole town rejoiced at having broken away from the thraldom of the Popes of Avignon. In vain did Gregory XI. call the people of Perugia “sons of iniquity”; in vain did he hurl the most terrible excommunications against them;[13] the feud between the city and the Pope was only laid to rest when the latter died. It had lasted long, and had produced something worse even than the struggle of two strong powers, for it had served to increase the terrible civil discord within the town. With the accession of Urban VI. a treaty was concluded, and Perugia acknowledged his right of dominion. In 1387 Urban arrived in the city, and as he entered the gates a white dove rested on his hat and refused to be removed by the servants who ran forward to deliver His Holiness from the unexpected visitor. It answered the Pope’s touch however, and was handed to his chaplain, and everyone accepted the event as an excellent omen. We will not linger to judge of its excellence, we can only say that the bird heralded an entirely new chapter in the history of the town, which hitherto had developed under general influences and many different hands. Her coming history is that of single influences, of personalities, or, in other words, of despots. The time had come when Perugia was to show the fruit of her stern ambitious character in the individual men whom she had reared. The names of Michelotti, Braccio Fortebraccio, Piccinino and of the noble families of Oddi and of Baglioni are familiar to all who have merely turned the pages of her history. Perugia, like other towns of Italy, had at the end of the fourteenth century reached a point of internal strife from which strong personalities could easily rise up to dispute or to control the existing government. Why it was exactly that the Popes did not from the first forcibly interfere with the turbulent doings of these men, it is difficult to tell. They were constantly coming to the city, constantly appealed to by the citizens and nobles, for ever interfering both by menaces and arms, but it was not till more than a century of blood and tyranny had passed, not till the glory of the town was already on the wane, that the power of the Church came down to crush Perugia like a sledge-hammer.

Strangely enough it was a Pope who first gave the city away into the hands of a private person or Protector.