Guelfs and Ghibellines

The terms Guelf and Ghibelline originally referred to two opposing factions in Germany. Following the death of Henry V in 1125, two groups contested succession to the imperial crown: on one side were the supporters of the house of Bavaria, the Welf (or Guelf), and on the other was the house of the Hohenstaufen, the rulers of Waiblingen (whence Ghibellini). Later, as the strife between Frederick I (Barbarossa) and the papacy worsened, the Emperor’s supporters were called Ghibellines while the Pope’s supporters were known as Guelfs. In this new meaning, the two terms co-existed in constant opposition during several decades of war within the communes of central and northern Italy.

 

In Florence, a strong tradition based partly on history and partly on legend, dates the beginnings of the conflict between Guelfs and Ghibellines to the murder of Buondelmonte de’ Buondelmonti, who married a woman from the Donati family in 1216 after rejecting marriage to the Amidei woman to whom he was betrothed. As recounted also by Dante in Par., XVI, this act of revenge resulted in endless strife within the city. Thus, after a period of power alternating between Guelfs and Ghibellines, the latter were eventually expelled from the city in 1267, with the support of Anjou’s army. Guelf rule prevailed in Florence in later years, also because of the alliance that the important Guelf families set up with the more enterprising merchant group that revolved around all the major Guilds, with the precise aim of opposing both magnates and Ghibellines. Following a brief interlude of Ghibelline rule which ended with the battle of Campaldino, Florence remained definitively in the hands of the Guelf Party, which had now split into two factions, the Whites and the Blacks, led respectively by the Donati and the Cerchi, the former an expression of strict Guelfism subordinated to the Pope, and the latter intent on greater autonomy for the Commune and opposed to the influence of the Pope and his supporters the Anjous.