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Naples remained the chief power in Italy, and the natural leaders of the Guelphs,
with whose aid they had won their crown.
Adherence to Ghibelline principles was still maintained by the republics of Pisa and
Arezzo, the Della Scala family at Verona, and a few petty despots here and there in
Romagna and elsewhere. No great ideals of any kind were by this time at stake. As
Dante declares in the "Paradiso" (canto VI), one party opposed to the imperial
eagle the golden lilies, and the other appropriated the eagle to a faction, "so that it
is hard to see which sinned most". The intervention of Boniface VIII in the politics
of Tuscany, when the predominant Guelphs of Florence split into two new factions,
was the cause of Dante's exile (1301), and drove him for a while into the ranks of
the Ghibellines. The next pope, Benedict XI (1303-1304), made earnest attempts to
reconcile all parties; but the "Babylonian Captivity" of his successors at Avignon
augmented the divisions of Italy.
From the death of Frederick II (1250) to the election of Henry VII (1308), the
imperial throne was regarded by the Italians as vacant. Henry himself was a
chivalrous and high minded idealist, who hated the very names of Guelph and
Ghibelline; his expedition to Italy (1310-1313) roused much temporary enthusiasm
(reflected in the poetry of Dante and Cino da Pistoia), but he was successfully
resisted by King Robert of Naples and the Florentines. After his death, imperial
vicars made themselves masters of various cities. Uguccione della Faggiuola (d.
1320), for a brief while lord of Pisa "in marvelous glory", defeated the allied forces
of Naples and Florence at the battle of Montecatini (29 Aug., 1315), a famous
Guelph overthrow that has left its traces in the popular poetry of the fourteenth
century. Can Grande della Scala (d. 1339), Dante's friend and patron, upheld the
Ghibelline cause with magnanimity in eastern Lombardy, while Matteo Visconti (d.
1322) established a permanent dynasty in Milan, which became a sort of Ghibelline
counterbalance to the power of the Angevin Neapolitans in the south. Castruccio
Interminelli (d. 1328), a soldier of fortune who became Duke of Lucca, attempted
the like in central Italy; but his signori perished with him.
Something of the old Guelph and Ghibelline spirit revived during the struggle
between Ludwig of Bavaria and Pope John XXII. Ludwig set up an antipope, and
was crowned in Rome by a representative of the Roman people, but his conduct
disgusted his own partisans. In the poetry of Fazio degli Uberti (d. after 1368), a
new Ghibellinism makes itself heard: Rome declares that Italy can only enjoy peace
when united beneath the scepter of one Italian king.
Before the return of the popes from Avignon, "Guelph" and "Ghibelline" had lost all
real significance. Men called themselves Guelph or Ghibelline, and even fought
furiously under those names, simply because their forbears had adhered to one or
other of the factions. In a city which had been officially Guelph in the past, any
The Hohenstaufen Dynasty - Page 27 of 200