Читать книгу Under The Green Claws - Ivo Ragazzini - Страница 11

In 1200, after the death of Frederick II, the Guelphs of Bologna, managed to conquer a large part of Romagna under the insignia of the Church, with the exception of the Ghibellines' Forlì, which continued to be a Ghibelline territory surrounded by Guelphs.

Until that time Bologna had been divided into three factions:

The Ghibellines led by the Lambertazzi.

The Guelphs led by the Geremei.

The populace was in the minority and neutral.

The Lambertazzi, perhaps to distract the Guelphs from Romagna, urged the people of Modena to attack, while the Geremei urged them to attack Forlì, and the people stood between the two factions to watch.

Bologna finally decided to try to conquer Forlì. So the Bolognese organized a regular army to march against the Romagna city, besiege it and subjugate the Romagna lands to the church.

This caused the people of Forlì to become aware of the danger they were in and they called upon Guido da Montefeltro to help them, who was known as "il Feltrano", an unparalleled Ghibelline, who was elected captain of the arms of Forlì and who prepared to fight against the Bolognese.

In 1273 the Bolognese army, ready to fight, set out along Via Emilia towards Forlì, to besiege it and force it to capitulate, but they found it very organized and equipped with numerous soldiers.

Furthermore, the Bolognese army was also made up of Ghibellines and Guelphs, and the people of Forlì took advantage of this during the first siege to establish friendships and make agreements with the Ghibelline Lambertazzi, which lead to future military and political alliances against the Geremei.

The Lambertazzi then pushed for peace, but the Geremei imposed conditions of surrender that were unacceptable to the people of Forlì.

Not even King Edward I of England, passing through Romagna returning from a crusade in the Holy Land, was able to reconcile Bologna and Forlì. This is because the eternal conflict was not between the two cities, but between Guelphs and Ghibellines.

So, finally, after two months of useless siege, the Bolognese decided that they needed many more troops to conquer it and withdrew without having caused even one injury to the Forlì people.

Instead the people of Forlì took advantage of the retreat of the Bolognese to take back Faenza, which after the death of Frederick II had returned to the Guelphs.

In this case they left the city with the excuse of pursuing the Bolognese army as far as Cosima, a town between Forlì and Faenza. The people of Faenza, seeing the people of Forlì approaching, closed the gates to prevent their entering, but il Feltrano had secretly agreed with some Ghibellines from Faenza and, with the excuse of wanting to continue his march towards Bologna, pretended to want to make camp in the countryside around Faenza without destroying or interfering in that land, so as not to raise suspicion.

During the night, with the help of the Acciarisi Ghibelline family,²⁸ a door to Faenza was opened for him and Guido da Montefeltro's men, with the Mainardi family and many Ghibelline exiles, introduced themselves into Faenza to pursue the Manfredi Guelphs with all their factions. The next morning they completed the job by sending the Forlì army against the Guelph strongholds of Castel San Pietro and Solarolo, where the Guelphs who had escaped from Faenza were sheltered, and they also took those strongholds by force before they managed to organize themselves.

Finally, Guido da Montefeltro elected two Forlì imperial podestàs for Faenza²⁹ and became captain of arms of Faenza, which he transformed it into a Ghibelline stronghold that would be very useful in the future in support of the Lambertazzi and the Bolognese Ghibellines.