Age of the Despots - 1250-1350
The Italians, during the heat of the civil wars, were ostensibly divided between partisans of the empire and partisans of the church. After the death of Frederick II, Ruler of the Two Sicilies and Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire (b. 1194, r. 1208, e. 1215, d. 1250), their affairs were managed by Manfred and by Charles of Anjou, the supreme captains of the parties, under whose orders acted the captains of the people in each city. The contest being carried on by warfare, it followed that these captains in the burghs were chosen on account of military skill; and, since the nobles were men of arms by profession, members of ancient houses took the lead again in towns where they had been absorbed into the bourgeoisie.
In this way, after the downfall of the Ezzelini of Romano, the Delia Scala dynasty arose in Verona, and the Carraresi in Padua. The Estensi made themselves lords of Ferrara ; the Torriani headed the Guelfs of Milan. At Ravenna there was the Polenta family, at Rimini the Malatestas, at Parma the Rossi, at Piacenza the Scotti, at Faenza the Manfredi. There is not a burgh of northern Italy but can trace the rise of a dynastic house to the vicissitudes of this period. In Tuscany, where the Guelf party was very strongly organized, and the commercial constitution of Florence kept the nobility in check, the communes remained as yet free from hereditary masters. Yet generals from time to time arose, the Conte Ugolino della Gheradesca at Pisa, Uguccione defla Faggiuola at Lucca, the Conte Guido di Montefeltro at Florence, who threatened the liberties of Tuscan cities with military despotism.
Left to themselves by absentee emperors and exiled popes, the Italians pursued their own course of development unchecked. After the commencement of the fourteenth century, the civil wars decreased in fury, and at the same time it was perceived that their effect had been to confirm tyrants in their grasp upon free cities. Growing up out of the captain of the people or signore of the commune, the tyrant annihilated both parties for his own profit and for the peace of the state. He used the dictatorial powers with which he was invested, to place himself above the law, resuming in his person the state machinery which had preceded him. In him, for the first time, the city attained self-consciousness; the blindly working forces of previous revolutions were combined in the will of a ruler. The tyrant's general policy was to favor the multitude at the expense of his own caste. He won favor by these means, and completed the leveling down of classes, which had been proceeding ever since the emergence of the communes.
In 1309, Robert, grandson of Charles, the first Angevine sovereign, succeeded to the throne of Naples, and became the leader of the Guelfs in Italy. In the next year Henry VII of Luxembourg crossed the Alps soon after his election to the empire, and raised the hopes of the Ghibellines Dante, from his mountain, solitudes, passionately called upon him to play the part of a Messiah. But it was now impossible for any German to control the "Garden of the Empire." Italy had entered on a new phase of her existence, and the great poet's De Afonarchia represented a dream of the past which could not be realized. Henry established imperial vicars in the Lombard towns, confirming the tyrants, but gaining nothing for the empire in exchange for the titles he conferred. After receiving the crown in Rome, he died at Buonconvento, a little walled town south of Siena, on his backward journey in 1313.
The profits of his inroad were reaped by despots, who used the Ghibelline prestige for the consolidation of their own power. It is from this epoch that the supremacy of the Visconti, hitherto the unsuccessful rivals of the Guelfic Torriani for the signory of Milan, dates. The Scaligers in Verona and the Carraresi in Padua were strengthened; and in Tuscany Castruccio Castracane, Uguccione's successor at Lucca, became formidable. In 1325 he defeated the Florentines at Alto Pascio, and carried home their carroccio as a trophy of his victory over the Guelfs. Louis of Bavaria, the next emperor, made a similar excursion in the year 1327, with even greater loss of imperial prestige. He deposed Galeazzo Visconti on his downward journey, and offered Milan for a sum of money to his son Azzo upon his return. Castruccio Castracane was nominated by him duke of Lucca; and this is the first instance of a dynastic title conferred upon an Italian adventurer by the emperor. Castruccio dominated Tuscany, where the Guelf cause, in the weakness of King Robert, languished. But the adventurer's death in 1328 saved the stronghold of republican institutions, and Florence breathed freely for awhile again. Can Grande dell Scala's death in the next year inflicted on the Lombard Ghibellines a loss hardly inferior to that of Castruccio's on their Tuscan allies.
Equally contemptible in its political results and void of historical interest was the brief visit of John of Bohemia, son of Henry VII, whom the Ghibellines next invited to assume their leadership. He sold a few privileges, conferred a few titles, and recrossed the Alps in 1333. It is clear that at this time the fury of the civil wars was spent. In spite of repeated efforts on the part of the Ghibellines, in spite of King Robert's supine incapacity, the imperialists gained no permanent advantage. The Italians were tired of fighting, and the leaders of both factions looked exclusively to their own interests. Each city which had been the cradle of freedom thankfully accepted a master, to quench the conflagration of party strife, encourage trade, and make the handicraftsman comfortable. Even the Florentines, in 1342, submitted for a few months to the despotism of the duke of Athens. They conferred the signory upon him for life; and, had he not mismanaged matters, he might have held the city in his grasp. Italy was settling down and turning her attention to home comforts, arts, and literature. Boccaccio, the contented bourgeois, succeeded to Dante, the fierce aristocrat.
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