A new century
The Holy Roman Emperor Barbarossa, while leading the Third Crusade, fell from his horse into a river and drowned under the weight of his armor in 1190. His son Henry VI assumed the throne. Like his father, he was a Hohenstaufen; unlike his father, he managed to marry Constance, the last heiress of the Norman kings, earning for his empire the island of Sicily.
When Henry died in 1197, it was expected that the imperial crown would pass, together with the Kingdom of Sicily, to his son Frederick II, but the boy was only three years old at the time. Henry’s youngest brother, Philip, became the guardian of the young Frederick with the intention of putting him on his throne once he came of age.
A second emperor
A coalition of German nobles had other ideas. Despite having less support, they managed to have Frederick II discarded in favor of a German king called Otto IV. This decision split the German barons into two camps: those in favor of the Hohenstaufen Frederick II, whose family had ties to Waiblingen, and those who were loyal to the Welf Otto IV.
Under Otto
As the thirteenth century dawned, the Republic of Florence was striving to expand its borders. It had just taken Montegrossoli in 1197 and Certaldo in 1198. Immediately thereafter, the Florentines laid siege to Semifonte, which they destroyed completely in 1203. Throughout the entirety of Otto’s nominal reign, it seemed there was no limit to what the Florentines could do.
The constant trickle of new families to the city only continued to grow. Those who couldn’t find any room inside the city built as close as they could, outside the city walls. The trickle soon became a stream, as Florence’s lands expanded to include the Via Francigena, the famous pilgrim highway of the Middle Ages that linked Canterbury to Rome.
Mendicants
The migration of the believers from one holy site to another was matched in those years only by the comings and goings of merchants. More than at any time before, Florence was exposed to all kinds of new influences.
Among these were the so-called mendicant friars, members of monastic orders who, unlike the Benedictines, could mix freely with the people. They founded new churches and established tertiary groups among the laity.
Franciscans of Santa Croce
The most popular of these innovative friars was certainly Saint Francis of Assisi. His brethren appeared for the first time in Florence in 1209 and Francis himself visited two years later. Their presence in the city was celebrated with the foundation in 1294 of the church of Santa Croce, to which they moved their library. Dante certainly could have come here to read all the Franciscan classics. Oriented more toward grassroots mysticism, followers of Francis revered poverty.
Dominicans of Santa Maria Novella
Dominicans, whose order was founded by the Spanish St. Dominic, were given a little shack of a church in the north of the city in 1221, and there founded Santa Maria Novella in 1279. It was probably here that Dante came to read and maybe even copy works by Albertus Magnus and Saint Thomas Aquinas, including commentaries on Aristotle. Roundly speaking, the Dominicans were known for their encyclopedic thirst for knowledge and uncanny ability to root out heretics.
After Otto
Eventually, Pope Innocent III betrayed Otto IV who abdicated in 1215, already gravely ill from depression. In fact, legend has it that Otto retired to a monastery in Harzburg and ordered that his priests whip him until he died of his penance.
Once Otto was gone, Florentines who hoped to maintain their independent status were gravely disappointed.
Buondelmonte dei Buondelmonti
In the late spring of that year, a premediated murder rocked the small city of Florence. A knight called Buondelmonte was ambushed in broad daylight as he came trotting across Ponte Vecchio. A man of the Uberti family knocked him off his horse and one of the Arrighi family fell upon him, slitting his throat.
The chroniclers tell us that the entire city split spontaneously into two contrary factions. Blood feuds were not uncommon among the noble class. What makes this one different is that all the coeval chroniclers agree that it was with this clash that the words Guelph and Ghibelline were first heard in Florence. The Buondelmonti clan became Guelphs, and the Uberti became Ghibellines.
Guelphs and Ghibellines
You’ve probably seen these terms, but may not realize how complicated they can be. The names came from those who supported the Welf line of Otto IV (known as Guelphs) and those who supported the Hohenstaufen line, which was dynastically linked with the city of Waiblingen. They were known as Ghibellines. In Italy, those who supported Otto were called Guelphs and those who supported Frederick were known as Ghibellines. At first.
The complication comes from the fact that, after Otto’s demise, “Guelph” came to mean “anti-Empire.” In Tuscany, more than elsewhere, Guelph also meant pro-independence and then later “pro-Papacy.” Similarly, although the Guelph-Ghibelline split began with the thirteenth century, the word Ghibelline is often used synonymously with “imperial supporter,” even in reference to preceding centuries.
Zero-sum game
The seesaw of Guelph-Ghibelline dominance typically played out the same way: when a city was governed by one party, the leading families of the opposition appealed for help to other cities ruled by their own party. Often, they were helped by their fellow citizens who were temporarily living there as exiles.
If the opposition coalition was successful, they took over the city, sending their enemies into exile and welcoming home their own. Their roles reversed, the two parties then began the cycle of violence, arson and murder all over again.
Dangerous duality
As in modern political systems today, individuals could adhere to one party or the other, as could families and even entire cities. Alliances and partnerships were commonly formed along party lines for political advantage, just like today.
It’s no surprise that small groups tend naturally to split into two rival factions. What is surprising is the vehemence and resentment that characterized the Guelph-Ghibelline duel throughout all the city-republics of Tuscany. In fact, the animosity of the partisanship manifested itself even in the way the men wore their clothes, with supporters of one side wearing their caps in one way, while their rivals wore it in another.
The emperor’s son
In the roughly thirty years since Otto’s death, Florence had gradually lost more and more of its independence to the Empire. The situation came to a head in 1246, when Emperor Frederick II promoted his illegitimate son, Frederick of Antioch, to the position of vicar-general of Tuscany (and podestà of Florence).
In the 18 months of Frederick’s tenure, the meaning of the term Ghibelline became much clearer to the Florentines. This is because he chose all the judges and paid the imperial soldiers. In other words, he had all the power.
The Hohenstaufen coat of arms above, and the Ghibellines’ below.