DELLA SCALA, FAMILY. - It held the lordship of Verona from 1259 (officially from 1277) to 1387 and died out in Germany in the 16th century. Its origins are obscure; nevertheless it seems certain that it was not of German nationality, as some late scholar asserted.
It is mentioned as early as the 11th century and is found in the events of the early commune (a Balduino was consul in 1147), but it did not stand out among the great communal families of Verona. As early as the 12th century it obtained in fief from the monastery of S. Maria in Organo lands in Valpolicella, and in the following century it joined the party of the Monticoli and Quattrovinti against the counts of Verona and in favor of Ezzelino da Romano. This did not prevent the latter from having some members of the house executed as traitors, Ongarello and Bonaventura in 1246, Federico and Bonifacio in 1257. On the other hand, a certain Lonardino called MASTINO, a descendant of another branch of the house, which traced back to a Jacopino, vassal of S. Zeno for lands at Castelrotto (1216) and father of Mastino, Alberto and Federico called Bocca, continued to enjoy Ezzelino's favor. Mastino in 1259 was elected podestà of Verona by Ezzelino. Upon the tyrant's fall (27 Sept. 1259), as head of the popular faction, which had established itself during Ezzelino's domination against the noble party of the counts, he was elected podestà of the people, organized in the «Mestieri»; but in the same year a Venetian, Andrea Zeno, is then found as podestà. However, from 1261 he was podestà of the Domus Mercatorum and therefore of all the Mestieri (1261-1269). In 1262 he was appointed captain of the people. He was not yet officially the lord of Verona, but he was its arbiter. His government was Ghibelline in tendency; he therefore favored the enterprise of Conradin of Swabia against Charles of Anjou, bringing upon his house and upon Verona the excommunication of Clement IV (18 Nov. 1267). When Mastino was made podestà of Verona, the office of podestà of the Domus Mercatorum passed to his brother ALBERTO (1269-77), who on 12 Nov. 1276, aided by the bishop Fra Timidio, took possession of Sermione, a nest of Patarines. As many as 166 of them were captured and led to Verona. However, Mastino contented himself with keeping them in prison. He was assassinated on 26 Oct. 1277, and his brother Alberto was elected Capitanus et Rector gastaldionum misteriorum et tocius populi, thus legally head of the administrative side of the Guilds, and at the same time political head of the Commune (1277-1301). Thus the Scaliger lordship officially arose. One of Alberto's first acts was the trial of the heretics of Sermione, many of whom were burned in the amphitheater on 13 Feb. 1278. Nicholas III therefore absolved him from the excommunication which his house had incurred ten years earlier and gave him the castle of Illasi. Verona too was absolved from the interdict, which Nicholas III himself had confirmed the previous year. Alberto was praised by a contemporary chronicler as «sublime of spirit, excellent in morals, provident in counsel, pious, merciful and judicious». The successor BARTOLOMEO I, his firstborn, perhaps associated from 1291, is also praised because in the brief years of his captaincy of the people (3 Sept. 1301-8 March 1304) he «always thought of governing his people in perpetual peace». He seems to be the «gran lombardo» who hosted Dante (Par., XVII, 70-75), who on the other hand speaks quite differently (Convizio, IV, 16) of his brother and successor ALBOINO (3 March 1304-29 Nov. 1311). The latter in 1308 associated with himself his brother CANGRANDE, who in the same year married Giovanna of Swabia, daughter of Conrad of Antioch. Henry VII appointed them his vicars (7 March 1311). With the death of Alboino, Cangrande remained sole lord and vicar (29 Nov. 1311-22 July 1329). For the interests of his house he consistently followed the Ghibelline side, always at war with the Guelphs of upper Italy, especially with the Paduans. He took from them Vicenza, of which in Feb. 1312 he was made imperial vicar. On 16 Dec. 1318 at Soncino the assembly of the Ghibellines elected him captain general of the Ghibelline league. Defeated before Padua (23 Aug. 1320) and at the same time excommunicated by John XXII for refusing to lay down the title of imperial vicar, he did not lose heart. He occupied Feltre and Belluno (1321), Padua (10 Sept. 1328) and the following year also Treviso (18 July 1329). At the height of his power, he died there a few days later (22 July 1329). Dante admired his genius and his works (Par., XVII, 76-93). He is undoubtedly the most eminent figure among the Ghibelline leaders of his time. He encircled Verona with new walls and erected S. Maria della Scala as a votive offering. Since he had no legitimate children, his successors were his nephews ALBERTO II and MASTINO II, sons of Alboino.
It was really Mastino II who held the government (23 July 1329 - 3 June 1351): he occupied Brescia, taking it from John of Bohemia (1332), Parma and Lucca (1335). Jealous, Venice and Florence formed a coalition against him (21 June 1336). The following year the Visconti, the Este, the Gonzaga, Charles of Bohemia and others also joined the league. It was then that the suspicious Mastino stabbed with his own hand his cousin Bartolomeo, bishop of Verona (27 Aug. 1338); struck by excommunication, he was absolved only after long negotiations and a heavy amends. The long war (1336-39) was disastrous for the Scaliger lordship, reduced to the possession of Verona, Vicenza, Parma and Lucca (1339), then only to Verona and Vicenza (1342). The fortune of the house declines irremediably, despite the marriage of Beatrice (d. 1384), Mastino's firstborn, to Barnabò Visconti (27 Oct. 1350) and that of his son Cangrande to Elisabetta, daughter of Ludwig of Bavaria. When Mastino II died on 3 June 1351, his sons Cangrande II, Cansignorio and Paolo Alboino succeeded him, of whom in reality only CANGRANDE II (3 June 1351 - 14 Dec. 1359) was capable of carrying on the government. He did so with a cruelty and extortion that earned him from a contemporary the epithet of «canis rabidus». Fregnano, his natural brother, was able during one of his absences to stir the city against him (14 Feb. 1354); for the time being Cangrande II saved his life and his power, which he lost 5 years later, when his brother CANSIGNORIO killed him with his own hand and succeeded him in the lordship (14 Dec. 1359 - 19 Oct. 1375). Of Cangrande II's children, all natural, Tebaldo died in prison; Guglielmo, freed from it, took refuge in Venice, where Fregnano had also fled. Cansignorio preferred the glories of the builder to those of the condottiere, which procured for Verona the name of «marmorea». But the heavy expenses forced him to confiscate a great part of the goods and tithes of the Church. He therefore incurred ecclesiastical censures, from which he was absolved only after death, with a strange ceremony, by the bishops of Padua and Verona (1376). They could not, however, erase the other stain, that to having had his brother Paolo Alboino assassinated, right on his deathbed (Oct. 1375), with the aim of securing the succession for his two illegitimate sons BARTOLOMEO and ANTONIO. Cansignorio died a few days later at only 36 years of age (Oct. 19, 1375). Guglielmo Bevilacqua held the regency for the two minors, and he restored to the clergy the property that had been confiscated. The murder of his brother Bartolomeo (July 12, 1381) and his marriage to the extravagant Samaritana da Polenta, who surrounded herself with people from Ravenna, alienated the hearts of the Veronese from Antonio. Antonio hastened the end of the lordship by allying with Venice in the struggle against Padua, which in turn was allied with Gian Galeazzo Visconti. The latter, favored by the friends he had in the city, occupied Verona on Oct. 19, 1387. Antonio fled to Venice and died the following year, leaving his family in such misery that Venice had to come to their aid with money. Pietro D. S., bishop of Verona, was transferred to Lodi (1388) and had to hand over to the Visconti even the last Scaliger properties. The attempt, favored by the Carraresi, to restore the Scaliger lordship with CAN FRANCESCO, son of Antonio, failed (Aug. 25, 1390). After his death, nothing remained of the D. S. but the aforementioned GUGLIELMO, natural son of Cangrande II. With the help of Francesco Novello da Carrara and the Marquis d'Este, he seized Verona on the night of Apr. 8, 1404. Only for a short time, however, for he died barely 10 days later (Apr. 18). Before his elder sons Brunoro and Antonio could be proclaimed lords, the Carraresi arrested them on a charge of treason and took them to Padua. From a PAOLO, third son of Guglielmo, descended the Bavarian branch of the Scaligeri, the last to die out.
The splendor of the Scaliger house and lordship in Verona is attested by the manuscripts of the Albertine statutes from the time of Mastino and Alberto I and those of Cangrande I, still unpublished, as well as by the statutes of the Guilds (1319); the crenellated castle (Castelvecchio) and the three-arched bridge over the Adige (destroyed in the Second World War) and, in front of S. Maria Antica, the Scaliger cemetery, with the arks, of which the most beautiful are those of Cangrande I, Mastino II and Cansignorio. The latter was sculpted by Bonino da Campione. - See pl. LXXXVIII.
Bibliography14 works
Ireneo Daniele