GUELFI AND GHIBELLINI. — These were the two great parties that dominated Italian political life in the 13th and 14th centuries and that still exerted a certain influence in the subsequent 15th and 16th centuries. It is commonly said that the Guelfs were supporters of the Church and the Ghibellines supporters of the Empire; in more recent studies, an attempt has been made to arrive at a more precise point of view, observing that at a certain point the two terms lost their ideological value and came to indicate only the factions opposing one another in the Italian cities over local, political, or economic interests. The history of the two terms, however, is somewhat more complex, and it is not easy to establish its stages precisely.
The origin is German. Conrad II the Salian was called «Cuonradus de Wevelinga»; it was said of his family: «de Waiblingin oriundi», because the cradle of the lineage was probably their domain of Waiblingen on the lower Neckar, between Heidelberg and Mannheim. When the Franconian family died out with Henry V (1125), its possessions and titles passed to the Stauffer nephews, dukes of Swabia, who jealously preserved the memory of their ancestors: the Chronicon Urspergense says that Frederick Barbarossa gloriabatur se de regia stirpe Waiblingensium progenitum fuisse. Their rivals were the lords of Altdorf, called Guelfs because this name, Welf, was used by not a few figures in the 11th and 12th centuries, both before and after they had received the duchy of Bavaria from Henry IV. Otto of Freising recalls the two dynasties for their importance and rivalry: Duae in Romano orbe... famosae familiae hactenus fuere: una Heinricorum de Guibellinga, alia Guelforum de Altdorfo (Gesta Federici [MGH, Scriptores, XX], II, II). The Bavarian Guelfs, under Henry the Lion, acquired the duchy of Saxony: their rivalry with the Stauffer, who had risen to the Empire, ended with their ruin; Otto, son of Henry the Lion, attempted to restore the family’s fortunes, becoming emperor after the death of Henry VI with the support of Innocent III. Otto IV was commonly called the Guelf, just as his competitor Frederick II came to be called the Ghibelline; these terms were not used as insults but as honors, to assert traditions, glories, and hereditary rights. Modern criticism has rejected as a late invention (15th century, with the first mention in the Chronaca of Andrea di Ratisbona) the famous account that the two terms Guelfs and Ghibellines began to be used as war cries (Hye Welf! Hye Weiblingen!) in 1140, at the siege laid by Conrad III against the Guelf fortress of Weinsberg.
In the years 1212–18, while in Germany Otto IV and Frederick II were contending for the throne, cities and lords in Italy likewise divided themselves between the two princes, and thus in the peninsula too there emerged the «Guelf party» and the «Ghibelline party». But the latter was under the protection of the Church: the Emperor, at odds with the papacy and excommunicated by Innocent III, was the Guelf. The earliest historical documentation for the use of the two terms is Florentine: the term Guelfi appears in 1239 (Guelfi fuerunt victi apud Castagnolum); in 1242 the two terms appear together (Guelfi fuerunt ad Gangalandi et Ghibellini ad Castagnolum): these are historical annotations in a Florentine codex written no later than 1244. From 1246 there is a letter from the captains of the Florentine Guelfs (C. de Cavalcantibus et R. de Adimaribus, Capitanei Guelforum) to a Florentine at the court of the anti-king Henry Raspe. The parties were already organized; the conflict between Frederick II and the Communes explains why in 1241 the Emperor wrote to the capitanei fidelium suorum Ianuensium. In 1247, at Parma, there was a pro imperatore capitaneus in Parma partis Imperii. In Florence, evidently, the Frederician supporters were called Ghibellines (= those of the Ghibelline), while the anti-Frederician supporters were cal-
After 1250 the two parties were firmly organized in Florence and included noble families. The use of the two terms began to penetrate into certain neighboring cities where Guelfs and Ghibellines had supporters and found refuge when ill fortune forced them into exile. At Arezzo there is talk of Guelfs and Ghibellines as early as 1240; likewise at Città di Castello and Borgo S. Sepolcro; at Siena in 1255, at Perugia in 1260, and at Bologna in 1274. The terms also appear in the history of other cities, but always in relation to Tuscany and Florence in particular. The chronicles often speak of military actions carried out jointly by the «Pars Guelfa Florentie» and the «Pars Ecclesie» of another city, showing that in Italy the two terms were known as the names of Florentine factions, whereas north of the Apennines the generic expressions «Pars Imperii» and «Pars Ecclesie» were used, or, more precisely, the names of the local factions. The terms Guelfs and Ghibellines did not spread very rapidly. In all the Italian cities, the absence of a superior power capable of disciplining and coordinating them had favored the formation of local factions following conflicts among families, clans, and city districts: thus civic life became crystallized in situations perpetuated through vendettas; yet the factions, if they did not lose their original meaning and did not forget their particular causes and aims, concealed the crudeness of their substance beneath an ideological mantle. It is difficult to specify why a particular family called itself a partisan of the Church or of the Empire: generally, these distinctions arose during the reign of Federico II itself. At Parma, as late as 1305, one finds Pars antiqua que dicebatur Ecclesie, opposed by the Pars Imperii et Episcopi; in 1295, during a Guelf tumult at Parma against the bishop, the cry had been raised: moriantur latrones de parte Imperii. The terms Guelfs and Ghibellines spread after the alliance between the house of Angiò and the Church, extending or modifying their meaning. Ideological adherence to the Church or to the Empire was not, however, merely external: among noble families in particular there was a traditional and deeply felt devotion to the Church or to the Empire; by fighting for or against them, ideological ties were established with families and political groupings in other cities, spiritual currents took shape, and important political and economic coalitions emerged.
After the battle of Benevento, Guelfism predominated throughout the peninsula, supported by the kings of Sicily; the revolution of the Sicilian Vespers brought serious reverses; at the beginning of the 14th century it was once again dominant, not only in Tuscany but also in the Lombard region. The expedition of Arrigo VII brought about a vigorous Ghibelline revival: the lords of Lombardy were generally Ghibelline. There was now a struggle between the Church and the Lords who represented the Empire ideologically but in reality aimed to construct their own states. Old political programs, but a new reality. In Florence, Guelfism was identified with the Florentine political program, and Villani became its spokesman, declaring that the Guelf party was the foundation and firm, solid fortress of the liberty of Italy and opposed to all tyrannies; «so that if any Guelf becomes a tyrant, he must necessarily become a Ghibelline». Thus Lapo di Castiglionchio idealizes the Guelf party: «The Guelfs are compassionate and merciful men, peaceful and mercantile, desirous of living in liberty and in a communal and popular state, under the reverence of Holy Church. And those others belonging to the number of the Ghibellines have been and are fierce, proud men, full of scandals, intrigues, treacheries, and support for tyrannical regimes, and they have never wished to keep their lands, wherever they had peace or power, under a communal or popular government; cruel and obstinate in their ways and showing little reverence for God and His Vicar on earth, enemies and hateful men; whence, in the common and popular saying, they came to be called Ghibelline Paterines».
In reality, during the 13th and 14th centuries the Church favored communal autonomies, whereas Ghibellinism drew from the anti-papal and anti-ecclesiastical imperial tradition weapons with which to combat every form of local autonomy, above all ecclesiastical jurisdictions, resisting excommunications and interdicts energetically.
But during the 14th century, various quarters began the struggle against the persistence of the political parties. The princes organizing territorial states wished to eliminate this factionalism, which, whether in support of or in opposition to them, essentially called their policies and their work of state-building into question. Typical is the decree of Filippo Maria Visconti of 1440: all citizens who had reached the age of eighteen were required, within two months, to swear that they were neither Guelfs nor Ghibellines. Elsewhere, legislation abolished the parties, while in some cities they were deprived of political vitality by dividing public offices equally between them or according to set proportions. By then the origin of the two names was no longer known, and as early as the 14th century not a few writers sought to explain the origin of the terms Guelf and Ghibelline through the most curious etymologies. Worth recalling are the treatise De Guelfhis et Ghibellinis by Bartolo da Sassoferrato and that of Benvenuto S. Giorgio, De origine Guelforum et Ghibellinorum, in which the Germanic origin of the names is specified. The attribution of their origin to duobus principibus inferni, Gibel et Gualef is common. Despite all prohibitions, Guelfs and Ghibellines were still mentioned in various Italian cities in the 16th century, although their attention had by then turned to the political struggles of the age and to taking sides for France or Spain. Montaigne found the old factions at Bologna and Lucca; Gregorio Leti in the 17th century noted that Guelfs wore the feather in their hats on the right as a distinguishing mark, while Ghibellines wore it on the left, and that women too had different party insignia. At Ravenna, Guelfs did not attend the church of the other party, and artisans who served members of one party were not admitted to serve members of the other. Thus the ancient factionalism was perpetuated in the ways of wearing ribbons or cutting one’s hair.
Guelfi e Ghibellini a Genova nel Duecento, in Riv. st. it., 60 (1948), pp. 525-41.