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
Finally, Guido da Montefeltro elected two Forlì imperial podestàs for Faenza
29
8. The Bolognese guerilla war
Learning of the fall of Faenza into Ghibelline hands, the Bolognese began to fear the Lambertazzi had planned the move so as to bring the Forlì troops closer to Bologna.
Therefore, the following year, they decided to send another army back to Romagna with the Bolognese carroccio
30
When the Bolognese set out with the army, the Lambertazzi, regardless of the consequences of such a gesture, suddenly decided to attack the Bolognese mayor directly inside the city before he left with the army, while the Forlì Ghibellines advanced from Faenza as far as the walls of Bologna to give him their support.
This immediately, ignited a guerrilla war.
The gates of Bologna were closed to prevent the entry of the Forlivese, but when a fight broke out between the Lambertazzi and Geremei, the people abandoned all neutrality and sided with the Guelphs to expel the Ghibellines from Bologna and began attacking the Lambertazzi inside the city.
Somehow the people of Forlì managed to enter,
31
Thus between April and May 1274 a guerrilla war between the two factions began in Bologna that lasted, without respite, almost two months.
Guelphs and Ghibellines were grouped inside the walls and neighborhoods were divided, which challenged each other to the bitter end.
In those days anything could happen. There were clashes on both sides at all hours of the day and people were even murdered at night, and later found in ditches or floating in streams the next morning.
Bologna was in the balance and seemed to have fallen into the hands of the Ghibellines.
In the end, in order not to capitulate, the Bolognese Guelphs called upon a large reinforcement of Lombard Guelphs to support the city.
The Guelphs prevailed, while ten Lambertazzi leaders were captured and imprisoned during a coup by the mayor of Bologna, who had summoned them with an excuse to discuss their surrender.
The Lambertazzi realized there was no escape and had to agree to come to terms and leave Bologna.
Thus, on the morning of 2 June 1274, after months of guerrilla warfare, in the midst of an unreal silence, there was an exodus of twelve thousand armed Ghibellines with wives, children and supporters in tow, who left Bologna without anyone daring to stop them, leaving almost half the city empty in one sweep.
They headed along the Via Emilia in the direction of Faenza, previously occupied by the inhabitants of Forlì, which was ready to welcome them.
9. The Lambertazzi exiles in Romagna
The long Ghibelline line, embittered but not defeated, headed towards Faenza, recently cleared by the Guelphs, which was ready to welcome them under the banner of the Forlì imperial eagles.
Some of them with wives and children permanently sheltered in Forlì, but the bulk of the Bolognese Ghibellines were housed in the newly conquered Faenza.
They placed themselves under the command of the Forlì captain Guido da Montefeltro and quickly began to reorganize to fight the Bolognese Guelphs again.
The Bolognese, after the violence of those events and having recovered strength after the expulsion of the Lambertazzi, took courage from the situation and decided to organize an attack on Faenza and Forlì again, to defeat the Ghibellines of Romagna once and for all.
But the Ghibellines from Romagna, even if numerically inferior, were more combative and had a very skilled military captain, and Bologna and the Guelphs would soon find out about him for themselves.
10. Capture of the Bolognese carroccio
The following year the Bolognese, believing that the Lambertazzi were preparing to return from Faenza to Bologna, decided to anticipate them and remove them from Romagna once and for all.
The Bolognese made a conducted a few raids in the Faenza territories to test the strength of the Ghibellines. Subsequently they decided to put together an army that was reinforced by Guelphs from Lombardy, Imola, Cesena and Ravenna.
Once assembled, they left to march towards Faenza to free it from the Lambertazzi so they would have a stronghold from which to attack Forlì.
The people of Forlì and the Lambertazzi, knowing this, did their utmost to stop them.
They gathered a sizeable Ghibelline army and set about reinforcing the Faenza and Forlì defenses, while Guido da Montefeltro managed to gather a series of worthy Ghibelline commanders under him, who came from various parts of Tuscany and Romagna, followed by their troops.
Those who came under the Ghibelline insignia were Guglielmo de' Pazzi of Valdarno, commander of the Tuscan outcasts, Mainardo Pagani da Susinana, a Guido Novello and sons, Bandino, Tancredi, Ruggiero and Tigrino of the Guidi counts, lords of Modigliana with their people, to whom they joined the Forlì people Aliotto Pipini, Superbo Orgogliosi, Teodorico Ordelaffi
32
On 13 June 1275 as soon as the news came that the Bolognese had crossed the San Procolo
33
Having come within sight of the Bolognese, Count Feltrano with the help of the Ghibelline commanders Maghinardo Pagani, Theodoric degli Ordelaffi, and other captains of the Lambertazzi, organized the troops for war and made a speech to incite them to battle.
The Bolognese captain Malatesta da Verucchio
34
Forthwith the Guelph cavalry, made up of the Bolognese nobility, were the first to relinquish their positions under the blows of the Lambertazzi.
Then they fled openly, abandoning the Bolognese infantry on foot, composed of the commoners, around the Bolognese carroccio.
The Bolognese army, left to itself, heroically organized themselves around the carroccio and the battle was kept in balance, but Guido da Montefeltro was decisive when he deployed heavy crossbows that systematically tore the Bolognese ranks to pieces.
To help you understand the scale of this battle eight thousand Bolognese were killed.
All fell, prey to the Forlivesi military pavilions, possessions, insignia, around three thousand chariots and, more importantly, the banner, which was the Bolognese municipal banner hanging from a pole, and the Bolognese carroccio, a four-wheeled cart decorated with the city insignia, around which the fighters gathered.
Guido da Montefeltro was made to climb triumphantly onto the Bolognese carroccio he had just conquered and was towed away by five hundred Bolognese prisoners to the walls of Forlì, where he was welcomed as a conqueror by a riot of crowds.
The Bolognese carroccio was kept as a trophy in the town hall, while the Bolognese banner was kept inside a Forlì convent, which at the time was named San Giacomo.
35
11. The Ghibellines take all of Romagna
On the impetus of that Guelph defeat, the Ghibellines advanced towards Bologna in the following months and sacked a few villas and castles in the surroundings; had it not been for the rain and the inclement season they would have attempted to capture Bologna and the return of the Lambertazzi.
Again they set fire to Castel San Pietro, which had recently been rebuilt by the Bolognese, returned to Romagna and took the fortress of Cervia, which surrendered without a shot being fired, after three days of negotiations, in exchange for the freedom of the occupants.
Now, in Romagna the cities of Rimini, Ravenna and Cesena remained loyal to the Bolognese and the Forlivese turned their weapons against the latter in an attempt to take possession of the stronghold of Roversano, a strategic location a few miles from Cesena, which the Bolognese and the captain Malatesta da Verucchio rushed to defend, after the defeat of Ponte San Procolo, they had returned to Rimini to reorganize.
However, this time Malatesta da Verucchio was defeated and he had to flee with some troops and close himself up inside Cesena, leaving the Bolognese praetor with notables and a thousand soldiers, besieged inside the Roversano fortress, who eventually surrendered.
The Bolognese notables were taken prisoner and also taken as a trophy inside Forlì, while the captured soldiers were led beneath the walls of Cesena and let free in exchange for opening the gates to the Forlì people.
While the Malatesta and a few Guelphs fled towards Rimini, the people of Cesena opened their gates and accepted Teodorico Ordelaffi and Orgoglioso De' Orgogliosi from Forlì as their Ghibelline governors.
Now only Ravenna was needed to have all of Romagna under the Ghibellines, and the Ghibellines worked hard to take the latter city as well.
In 1276 il Feltrano surprised and dispersed a Bolognese rescue expedition near Bagnacavallo, which had been sent by the Geremei who, with the Florentine Guelphs and six hundred French knights, were marching to the rescue of Ravenna.
The Bolognese then organized new troops to rescue the city.
Guido da Montefeltro, like the good strategist he was, besieged Bagnacavallo so he would be able to control the road that led from Bologna to Ravenna and leave the latter isolated.
To do this he had the Faentine and Forlivese troops build a small fortification
36
Bagnacavallo also, after twelve days of siege, surrendered to the Forlì people.
For these actions the Forlì people were subjected to an interdiction by Bonifazio, archbishop of Ravenna.
12. The Guelph and Ghibelline battles in the Apennines
Indignant and fed up with all these wars, the Bolognese asked the pope for help to finish with the Romagna Ghibellines once and for all, as they seemed to be unbeatable on the plains and guerrillas in the city.
Thus, the Guelphs decided to mount a surprise attack and surround the land of Forlì from the mountains of Tuscany, that is to say on the southern border of the Forlì state, which was left unguarded in the Apennines.
The Bolognese, thanks to the Pope's Guelphs, gathered together troops from Florence, Reggio Emilia, Modena, Ravenna and with the help of some Forlì traitors, decided to conceive and organize a plan to attack the Ghibelline state from the Tuscan mountains and Apennines to surprise the Forlì people, who were almost all concentrated and located on the Romagna plain.
The Guelphs, under the command of Guido Selvatico, count of Romena, attacked the mountain possessions of Forlì from the mountains, quickly seizing Galeata, Pianetto, Civitella, Montevecchio and other sites in the mountains, while other Guelph troops advanced on the plains again towards the San Procolo bridge in the area of Faenza, to wage war and prevent Faenza from assisting the inhabitants of Forlì.
At the same time the Guelphs also besieged the castle of Piancaldoli in the Faenza Apennines, a territory that was controlled by the capable commander Maghinardo Pagani.
37
Thanks to the counterattacks of the latter, who summoned the captain of the Lambertazzi to come to him from Faenza and to the Forlì senate, who sent the army to those sites, with a furious battle that lasted a few hours, the Guelphs were vanquished and put to flight from the castle and village of Civitella, which they had recently occupied.
Il Feltrano decided to pursue them through the mountains and the fugitives attempted to turn towards Tredozio, where there was a Guelph stronghold, but they were caught up with and surrounded by the strategy of Montefeltro, and were forced to stop and fight in a difficult place and were easily defeated and taken prisoner.
Given the failed attack in the mountains, the Bolognese also retreated from Ponte San Procolo and attempted to escape into Imola, chased by the Faentine Ghibelline troops from Faenza who had entered the city, where the Guelphs were surprised while they were digging moats around the walls to defend themselves.
A small battle ensued during which another hundred Guelphs died.
Following this conflict, Guglielmo Ordelaffi, Paganino Orgogliosi and his son Francesco were captured and imprisoned inside the fortress of Cesena, as traitors for having betrayed the Ghibellines and having taken part in the revolt against Guido da Montefeltro.
Subsequently they tried to escape from the stronghold of Cesena, but were captured and beheaded.
At the same time il Feltrano decided to end the fight with the Guelphs in Romagna and moved against the castle of Calboli
38
The Guelphs of Forlì, Riniero and Guido De' Calboli, locked themselves up with other nobles and eight hundred guards, in the castle of Calboli, having given them twelve thousand lire to defend that location for at least ten months while awaiting help.
But because the steps were so narrow no help came from Bologna. At this point, il Feltrano decided to put siege to the castle of Calboli and after two months he destroyed it with seven enormous war machines that cast huge stones, razed its walls and its houses, which were reduced to nothing.