The pope cut him short, "So let it take root in Forolivii and in Romandiola, and then baptize all of them and establish papal legates to whom allegiance can be sworn, since that land has been ceded to us by the Emperor Rudolph of Alemania
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"The question is a little more complex, Eminence..." said the historian.
"Explain this to me."
"They, unlike others, have already refused to elect the Most Holy Virgin Mary of Candlemas as their patron, claiming their patron to be an ancient priestess called Livia Drusilla, Diva Augusta
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"Sacred salt? Diva Augusta?"
"Yes, Eminence, those saltpans were founded by Livio Salinatore, an ancient ancestor of this Livia Drusilla, and still today they send salt from there, during a sacred procession to that city for the feasts to honor her."
"And how can they still believe these things after centuries?" the pope laughed quietly.
"Well, Eminence, you should know that this Livia Drusilla was not a common priestess but the wife of Octavian Augustus and, in Forolivia, some still wish to remember her as such and to keep her as protector, even if it is partially hidden by them, replied the papal historian.
"How do you know all this?"
"I learned everything from a friar of a particular religious order that was founded in Ravenna by Emperor Otto III two hundred years ago, a very good friend of Geremia Gotto and Guido Bonatti."
"Geremia Gotto and Guido Bonatti? The armed patarines
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"In person, Excellency, and they are both in Forlì among the ranks of the Ghibelline in the service of Guido da Montefeltro."
"Oh dear, the excommunicated captain of the Ghibellines?"
"Yes, Excellency!"
"But are they all that mad!"
"Indeed, Excellency, they are a little peculiar."
"You also spoke of a religious order founded by Emperor Otto III in Ravenna. What religious order are you talking about?" asked the pope.
"In Ravenna, Otto III founded a religious group with all practices and beliefs that still seem to be extant today."
"What practices and beliefs do they follow?"
"They seem to affirm the reincarnation and pre-existence of souls."
"Oh, there you are. Gnostic heresy.
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"That may be so, Otto III was that young emperor who two centuries ago claimed to have been Charlemagne and appointed an antipope named Sylvester II to be re-elected as Constantine the Great, the legitimate heir of the Roman Empire," replied the historian.
"Charlemagne, Constantine? Would you like to explain better what he did?" asked the pope.
"Certainly, Excellency. Otto III, around the year 1000, entered the Aachen cathedral, marked a point on the floor, then took a pickaxe, began to break through the floor and found the body of Charlemagne underground, it was still intact sitting on a throne, adorned and all decked out as a bishop, holding the Gospel in one hand and the staff of command in the other."
"And why did he do this?"
"Because he said he was his reincarnation and that he had returned to take his place as Holy Roman Emperor."
"And then?"
"He took the bishop's tiara that Charlemagne had on his head and put it on his own, then took Charlemagne's staff of command and said he had returned to rule."
"And then?" the pope asked more and more incredulously.
"Then, still not happy, he went to Ravenna and founded this particular religious group and appointed the bishop of Ravenna antipope, with the name of Sylvester II, to crown him emperor, exactly as Pope Sylvester had crowned Constantine emperor of the Christians, seven centuries earlier, at the time of ancient Rome," explained the historian.
"And why did he create this final scene?"
"To make everyone believe he was also the reincarnation of Constantine and to take back what he considered to be his property, that is the territories the church was trying to take from him, the empire, thanks to the gift of Constantine."
"And so he said he was the reincarnation of Charlemagne and Constantine to take the land back from the Holy Roman Empire?" exclaimed the pope.
"Those, Your Holiness."
"Those who?"
"Frederick Barbarossa and Frederick II also exhumed the body of Charlemagne and proclaimed something like this. And I would bet that this tradition has also been handed down to the astrologer Guido Bonatti and to Friar Geremia Gotto."
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"But these are all crazy."
"I told you, Excellency, that they were a little particular," concluded the historian.
4. Confrontations between the Guelphs and Ghibellines in Romagna
But why did the Church want Romagna?
What had happened between the papacy and emperors in those times?
Let's go back a few decades and take a look at a chronicle of the time.
Romagna in 1200
Although Pepin King of the Franks
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The residents of Forlì continued to obey the laws of the empire, while the residents of Faenza and Ravenna obeyed those of the Church.
Forlì, formerly named Forum Livii, in particular, was one of the most Ghibelline city in Italy and it was not a coincidence that Guido Bonatti, one of the best astrologers of his time, despite being born in Florence, requested and obtained citizenship of Forlì, believing that location to be the final place left in the world that maintained imperial traditions after the fall of the ancient empire of Rome, for reasons that you will soon discover for yourself.
In 1240, when Pietro Traversari died, who was the leader of the Guelphs of Romagna and lord of Ravenna,
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In less than a week Ravenna fell and surrendered.
Now it was Faenza's turn to surrender, but the city, believing that Frederick II's forces were insufficient to cause it to capitulate, did not surrender and the emperor placed it under siege.
5. The siege of Faenza
Faenza resisted for seven months, infuriating Frederick himself, since years before he had already conquered the town and it had come to terms with him.
Furthermore, during the siege Frederick II ran out of gold and money and had to resort to the help of the Forlì people to conquer Faenza, he also requested the Forlì people to issue special augustarians
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So, after having conquered Faenza, Frederick II wanted to raze it to the ground and erase it from the earth, saying all who were against the Faenza who, defeated, were unable to appease his fury in any way and had begun to have it dismantled by teams of scouts.
The people of Faenza, not knowing what else to do, even turned to their nearby enemies from Forlì, begging them to intervene and intercede with the emperor to stop the devastation he was causing to the detriment of their city.
The people of Forlì accepted the requests for help from Faenza and went as a delegation to intercede with the emperor to halt the destruction of the city.
Frederick, not without objections and protests against the people of Faenza, whom he considered traitors,
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Thus the two cities became, until Frederick's death, two cities united in a small state governed by the same imperial laws and defended by the same arms.
Furthermore, because of their loyalty, Frederick granted the people of Forlì the right to use the black eagle on a gold field
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Many things changed, however, in 1249, when Frederick II died in Puglia and especially in the following years, when Carlo d'Anjou defeated Frederick II's son, Manfredi, in Benevento in 1266.
Thus the Guelphs, who had been expelled from Florence a few years earlier after their defeat at the battle of Montaperti, began to regain strength in Florence and Bologna. A battle began in those cities for dominance over the Ghibellines, which briefly extended to all of Romagna, with the support of the Church that claimed that land to be hers.
And so, while Carlo I d'Angiò was named pope the imperial vicar of Tuscany, the Tuscan Guelphs returned to Florence and the region, while the Tuscan Ghibellines had to leave and take refuge in Romagna, which remained one of the last of the Ghibelline sites still loyal to the imperial laws in Italy.
6. The dragon, the Guelph cross and the Ghibelline cross
At that time, from 1186, various apocalyptic stories circulating around Italy were attributed to the prophet Gioacchino da Fiore, which spoke of the coming of a dragon with the seven heads of seven antichrists.
Six heads had already been assigned to various historical figures of the past but the last, and most important, was still vacant.
Thus the final missing head of the dragon was quickly attributed to Frederick II, by a certain type of clergy, who believed in the prophecies of Gioacchino da Fiore, because of the fact that, in addition to wanting to reform the church, it was said that he was born out of a union between a prelate and an old nun. Furthermore, Frederick II spoke Arabic, his bodyguards were Arabs and, during the Crusades, he was more concerned with making peace than war in the Holy Land, so much so that he was nicknamed "the Dragon", while other Franciscan and poorer circles of the Church, paradoxically, attributed to him the role of reformer, as the expected apocalyptic persecutor of the corrupt Church and especially of the cardinals.
For this reason many poor friars and priests, and later also white Guelphs, fought in the ranks of the Ghibellines.
The Guelphs used a papal cross as their symbol and flag; while the Ghibellines, while not denying the existence of God, had the reverse an imperial cross with contrasting colors that mirrored the Guelph one and summed up the different philosophy between the two factions.
But how were they made and what was the difference between the two symbols? Let's take a look.
Perhaps the Ghibelline and Guelph crosses arose as symbols, even before the Guelphs and Ghibellines, during the Holy Roman Empire of Charlemagne.
But it was during the struggles of investiture between the papacy and the empire that they developed into a struggle for the right to elect emperors and administrators by the pope and bishops against the right claimed by the emperors to be elected directly by God without the intermediation of the Church.
Both symbols represented the power of God but there were two main ways to represent and understand them.
The first was imperial, that is, the power of God was pre-existent and was granted by Him in person directly to the emperors so that they ruled, already from the time of ancient Rome, long before the coming of Christ and the church.
The other was the power of the Church which, representing the will of God on Earth, acted as a direct intermediary and to whom the power of control by God over men had been granted and it was therefore he who decided whether or not to give it to the emperors.
Various disputes and many religious and military groups arose from these two visions, or philosophies, such as the Carolingians, the Templars, the Guelphs and the Ghibellines.
Two main symbols were used to represent these factions and ideas:
One was the cross of Saint John the Baptist, which was used by the Templars and Ghibellines.
The other was the cross of Saint George employed by the clergy and the Guelphs.
When the nobles and clergy organized expeditions or crusades, they put these flags on their heads that bore white or red crosses, depending on whether the divisions were under the nobles or the church or if emperors or popes had assembled them.
But how were these two flags made and what did they mean?
First you need to know that purple was the official color of ancient Rome and represented the Roman emperors, while white represented the color of God.
The Ghibelline flag of Saint John the Baptist was a large white cross on a completely purple background.
It meant that the imperial red and its nobility were already pre-existing everywhere, in which God then placed his white cross as a guarantee of purity and truth.
Opposite and contrasting in colors and meanings, was the Guelph flag of Saint George, where a purple cross on a completely white field meant that God pre-existed everywhere with his purity and granted a purple cross to the emperor who was therefore subordinate to God and to the Church. In practice, with God's permission, the cross of the imperial cardinal could be inserted in that flag on a white background.
The Guelphs said the church had granted permission through the pope and his bishops from the time of Pope Silvester, when he was crowned Constantine emperor of Rome, while the Ghibellines instead claimed that this was false.
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Subsequently, there was a split even within the Guelphs into white Guelphs and black Guelphs.
The white Guelphs, while recognizing their fidelity to God, did not recognize it in the wealth and moral corruption of the papacy, while the black Guelphs continued to be loyal to the papacy and the church in all things.
Gradually the white Guelphs simply called themselves the "Whites" and joined the cause of the Italian Ghibellines, while the "Black" Guelphs put themselves at the service of the clergy to make common cause against the Ghibellines and the "Whites".
So to these flags were also added the symbols of the white Guelphs and Florentine black Guelphs, which were nothing more than a white flag with Libertas
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Libertas, Libertas WhitesBlacksThus, anyone today who takes the municipal coats of arms of the city of Bologna and Forlì will see, after careful observation that, even if arranged differently, the meanings and symbols they contain are exactly contrary to and opposite between papacy and empire, or Guelphs and Ghibellines, if you prefer.
It is possible to see in them not only the symbols of the empire in contrast to those of the papacy, but also that of the white Guelphs allied to the Forlì Ghibellines as opposed to the black Guelphs allied to the Bolognese.
In practice, in the coat of arms of Bologna the heraldic Anjou Chief
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Libertas,On the other hand we find the Forlì coat of arms composed of the imperial eagle of Frederick II, which in the right claw holds an oval shield with the Ghibelline cross of Saint John and in the left claw holds a white shield with the writing Libertas, which is the symbol of the White Guelphs who were allied to the Forlì Ghibellines.
And if someone also wants to take a look at the Cesena coat of arms, a city a few miles from Forlì, they will notice how it is a subsequent symbol of reconciliation between white Guelphs and black Guelphs, being nothing more than a series of half white and half black symbols, gathered under the heraldic Anjou Chief .
7. The causes of the Guelph and Ghibelline battles in Romagna
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.