Ghibellines

“ The Guelfs, when their day came, built the walls of Florence with the stones of Ghibelline palaces. [7] One great family stands out pre-eminent in this fierce conflict as the victim and monument of party war. The head of the Ghibellines was the proud and powerful house of the Uberti, who shared with another great Ghibelline family, the Pazzi, the valley of the upper Arno. They lighted up the war in the Emperor's cause. ”

“ These two great historical parties—the Guelfs and Ghibellines, are the same which we meet with in other periods of history, and even in our own times, though under other names, often in a form very different from that of the present day, and not always in the same relative position towards each other; but in the middle age they appeared in the larger and more gigantic proportions of the vigorous, heroic character belonging to that epoch. ”

“ If these definitions could be considered as exhaustive, there would be little doubt as to the side to which our sympathies should be given. ... We should ... expect all patriots to be Guelphs, and the Ghibelline party to be composed of men who were too spiritless to resist despotic power, or too selfish to surrender it. But, on the other hand, we must never forget that Dante was a Ghibelline." O. Browning, Guelphs and Ghibellines, chapter 2. See, also, ITALY: A. D. 1215. FLORENCE: A. D. 1248-1278. The wars of a generation of the Guelfs and Ghibellines. ”

“ According to some, they came from Arezzo, and consequently were Ghibellines. On the contrary, others, their friends, declared that they had been driven thence because they were Guelfs. True or false, the accusation of being Ghibellines was not without danger at a time when the announced approach of Charles IV was awakening former terrors. When minds are agitated, the least incident appears important, and furnishes food for hatred. The Albizzi have servants at Casentino to defend their property? It is a lie! They are there to attack the Ricci. ”

“ The river affords abundant water-power for flour-mills, saw-mills, woollen-mills and numerous factories, of which agricultural implements, sewing machines and musical instruments are the chief.
GUELPHS AND GHIBELLINES. These names are doubtless Italianized forms of the German words Welf and Waiblingen, although one tradition says that they are derived from Guelph and Gibel, two rival brothers of Pistoia. Another theory derives Ghibelline from Gibello, a word used by the Sicilian Arabs to translate Hohenstaufen. ”

“ And a little while after he caused the Ghibelline gate to-183- be made, and the road out to be opened; to the intent that by that way, which corresponds with the palace, there might be entrance and exit at need, and he might bring his retainers from Casentino into Florence to guard him and the city. And because it was done in the time of the Ghibellines, the gate and the road took the name of Ghibelline. ”

“ San Gimignano now followed the fortunes of Siena, as in its Guelf days it had followed those of Florence. But in 1269, after the battle of Colle di Val d’Elsa, it became Guelf again under the suzerainty of Charles of Anjou, expelled the leading Ghibellines, and took a Captain of the People in imitation of the Florentines. But the neighbouring castle of Poggibonsi still clung to the decaying cause of the Ghibellines, and sheltered the fuorusciti. It was now, in 1270, reduced by the French soldiery of Montfort, aided by the Florentines and Sangimignanesi. ”

“ In fact, each noble family, and each city, seemed to consult only their hereditary affection, and not their political principles, in ranging themselves under either standard. The Guelfs placed themselves in opposition to the pope, to repel his Ghibelline candidate; and Milan, Piacenza, and Brescia braved even excommunication to resist him; while, on the contrary the Ghibellines of Pavia, Cremona, and of the marches armed themselves with zeal against an emperor of the Guelf blood. ”

“ In order to put an end to the struggle of the Guelphs and Ghibellines at Forli, he persuaded the inhabitants to rebuild the city walls and to begin the works under a constellation indicated by himself. If then two men, one from each party, at the same moment put a stone into the foundation, there would henceforth and for ever be no more party divisions in Forli. A Guelph and a Ghibelline were selected for this office; the solemn moment arrived, each held the stone in his hands, the workmen stood ready with their implements. ”

“ Michael's corn-market; and all the rest of the Uberti and Ghibelline families were driven out of Florence, and their palaces pulled down, and the walls towards Siena built with the stones of them; and two months afterwards, the people suspecting the Abbot of Vallombrosa of treating with the Ghibellines, took him, and tortured him ”

“ Upon the castles, and the persons of their antagonists, however, the pride, or fear, of the Ghibellines had little mercy; and in their day of triumph they provoked against themselves nearly every rational as well as religious person in the commonwealth. They despised too much the force of the newly-risen popular power, founded on economy, sobriety, and common sense; and, alike by impertinence and pillage, increased the irritation of the civil body; until, as aforesaid, on the 20th October, 1250, all the rich burgesses of Florence took arms ”

“ The towns where the streets are still running red with the blood of the citizens, while the remains of houses and palaces are still smoking in their ruin, are visited by beings of another world, and have mystical gates and windows that open out upon the unseen.
San Gimignano was now Guelf for a while, and sent a well-equipped little force to swell the Florentine host at Montaperti in 1260. After the battle the Ardinghelli, Pellari, Mangieri and other Guelf families fled to Lucca; the Ghibellines took over the government and recalled Neri degli Uberti to serve as Podestà. ”

“ Nothing is more usual than to see parties, which have begun upon a real difference, continue even after that difference is lost. When men are once enlisted on opposite sides, they contract an affection to the persons with whom they are united, and an animosity against their antagonists; and these passions they often transmit to their posterity. The real difference between Guelf and Ghibelline was long lost in Italy, before these factions were extinguished. The Guelfs adhered to the pope, the Ghibellines to the emperor ”

“ Thus many new powerful families had arisen, constituting a new aristocracy, as it were, of wealthy traders, or, according to the designation already bestowed on them, of popolani grassi (stout burghers) now the virtual masters of the Florentine citizens.286 Gradually, therefore, the Ghibellines in power were reduced to an isolated caste, and only enabled to maintain their position by Manfred's friendly support and the help of his German contingent. Being accordingly in the attitude of invaders encamped on alien soil, their moral and political ascendency, their civil authority daily declined ”

“ All round the Queen of the Woods was a storm of sobbing and sorrow.
But no, she would not weep.
THE HOARD OF THE GIBBELINS The Gibbelins eat, as is well known, nothing less good than man. Their evil tower is joined to Terra Cognita, to the lands we know, by a bridge. Their hoard is beyond reason; avarice has no use for it; they have a separate cellar for emeralds and a separate cellar for sapphires; they have filled a hole with gold and dig it up when they need it. And the only use that is known for their ridiculous wealth is to attract to their larder a continual supply of food. ”

“ No city calls itself either Guelph or Ghibelline till it has expelled one-half of its inhabitants; for each party is resolved to constitute the state according to its own conception, and the affirmation of the one programme is the negation of the other. The Ghibelline honestly believes that the Guelphs will reduce society to chaos. ”

“ Alderic, Knight of the Order of the City and the Assault, hereditary Guardian of the King's Peace of Mind, a man not unremembered among makers of myth, pondered so long upon the Gibbelins' hoard that by now he deemed it his. Alas that I should say of so perilous a venture, undertaken at dead of night by a valorous man, that its motive was sheer avarice! Yet upon avarice only the Gibbelins relied to keep their larders full, and once in every hundred years sent spies into the cities of men to see how avarice did, and always the spies returned again to the tower saying that all was well. ”

“ Thus in the thirteenth century you find Ghibelline Doria linked with the Guelph Grimaldi and Fieschi to break Ghibelline Spinola. The aspect of the city at that time was certainly very different from the city of to-day, which is mainly of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries where it is not quite modern. Then each family had its tower, from which it fought or out of which it issued, making the streets a shambles as it followed the enemy home or sought him out. The ordinary citizen must have had an 14anxious time of it with these bands of idle cut-throats at large. ”

“ As a natural consequence of their defeat at Montaperti, the Guelfs were again forced to fly into exile from Florence, and this expatriation included a large number of even the commoner people. "So thorough had been the defeat, so complete the Ghibelline ascendency resulting from it, that in every city the same scene on a lesser scale was taking place. Many of the smaller towns, which had always been Guelph in their sympathies, were now subjected to Ghibelline despotism. One refuge alone remained in Tuscany--Lucca. ... And thither the whole body of the expatriated Guelphs betook themselves. ... ”

“ The Guelf movement of the Middle Ages, which had its home in the free States of Tuscany and North Italy, was dead and gone; it could no longer give life or withhold it. And the old Ghibelline principle was dead too. ”

“ There is a healthy vigor in the mind of the boy who would like of all things to be lost in the woods, to build a fire out of doors, and sleep under a tree or in a haystack. Civilization is tiresome and enfeebling, unless we occasionally give it the relish of a little outlawry, and approach, in imagination at least, the zest of a gypsy life. The records of pedestrian journeys, the Wanderjahre and memoirs of good-for-noth-ings, and all the delightful German forest literature,—these belong to the footpath side of our nature. ”

“ To the heart of the gypsy there is a kindred voice in the cheerful crackle of a camp fire—in the wind that rustles tree and grass—in the song of a bird or the hum of bees—in the lap of a lake or the brilliant trail of a shooting star.
A winter forest of tracking snow is rife with messages of furry folk who prowl by night. Moon-checkered trees fling wavering banners of gypsy hieroglyphics upon the ground. ”

“ The gypsy wildness in her needed colour, warmth, the speed of strange adventures; as a child, and later as a woman, she had peopled the heath with voices other than the curlew’s and the plover’s. The countless hollows, bottomed by rank mosses and deep bracken, hid ambushed men; behind each hillock that concealed the track from her, she would look for some figure to come riding down to meet her, and no toil about the farm, no harshness of the workaday life which hemmed her in at Ghyll, had killed this glamour of the heath. ”

“ One said, ‘Don’t tell, for there was lately a blind man under the gallows, and he heard what we said. And he made himself eyes, and made the water run, and raised up the emperor’s daughter. Stay, while I look under the gallows.’
And they found the blind man. ‘There’s a blind man here.’ And they rent him all in pieces. Then the devils departed; the man was dead.
This story is told as well as story may be. There is a Gypsy variant, longer but not half so good, from the Hungarian Carpathians, in Miklosich’s Beiträge, p. ”

“ Parting from the hunter, the gypsy thief ran with all his speed to the farther end of the forest, and whistled. There was no answer. “They are asleep,” thought the gypsy, and entered a cavern where some robbers, lying on the skins of animals, were resting themselves.
“Halloa, comrades! Are you asleep?” cried the gypsy. “Get up, quick! or you will lose a fine bird. He is alone in the forest, and his pockets are full of gold. Make haste!” ”

“ The uproar drew nearer; the tower of the lieutenant’s house, situated opposite the Grève, was full of clamors and light, and soldiers could be seen running on the opposite quay with torches and these cries, “The gypsy! Where is the gypsy! Death! Death!” ”

“ Gypsy camp fires were indeed dispelling dark shadows of a fading day in the heart of a forest glade when the truck bearing Merry’s “Golden Circle” arrived at the scene of the encampment. But no little French girl danced about any of them.
“They’re gone, those Frenchies,” said the greasy gypsy who came out of a tent in answer to their call. “Don’t know much about ’em. They’re not of our tribe. We’re Americans; been here for generations.” ”

“ Once, with the young commercial traveler in vests and pants—three years before an officer in the Great War—we walked to lonely districts where the Indian cavalry had pitched their camps beyond the city and when in a little Turkish coffee shop, remote and solitary, some wild Gypsy women in tattered robes of many colors, through which could be seen their bare brown limbs, danced and sang. No need to ask the origin of the Gypsy folk after seeing these. They were people of the Far East, and their songs had the harsh and ancient melody of Oriental nomads. ”