CHAPTER III

_The Middle Ages._--_Ezzelino da Romano_

The power of the Lombards, after lasting for over two centuries in Italy was now tottering to its fall, and about to give way to that of the Franks in the northern part at least of the Peninsula. The Popes seeing to their dismay that the long-bearded invaders far from confining themselves to their northern conquests were planning to add to their possessions in the South, called in the aid of the Franks. Pepin I. then King of France, answered readily to the summons; and after his death his son Charlemagne was only too glad to retain a foothold in the land where he meant to establish his dynasty. Desiderius, at that time King of the Lombards, saw clearly the danger threatening his realm. To propitiate the French monarch and bind him to his cause he gave him his daughter Desideria in marriage, little foreseeing how such a step was but to aggravate his difficulties. Desideria was repudiated shortly after her marriage, and came back to her father’s house an injured, outraged woman. Desiderius swore to be revenged, though he had to conceal his intentions, and outwardly appear subservient. He sought to raise up foes against Charlemagne, who to avert the threatened sedition marched at the head of an army into Lombardy. Desiderius was defeated at Le Chiuse di Susa, and forced to fly to Pavia. At the same time his son Adelchi, whom he had associated with him on the throne, withdrew to Verona, which he fortified--a fact that proves how even at that date the town was a stronghold and able to endure a siege. It was at once beleaguered by the Franks and compelled to open its gates to them while Adelchi had to retire and seek shelter and help at Constantinople.

The changes brought about at Verona under the Carlovingian rule were many. Counts were appointed in the place of the dukes who had held sway till then; and Verona was converted from a duchy into a county, though as far as transpires the extent of territory belonging to the new condition remained unaltered. Charlemagne was in Rome in the year 781 when Pope Adrian I. baptised his two sons, Pepin and Louis, and afterwards anointed them kings. Their father’s intention had been to appoint the eldest son, Pepin, King of Italy, and leave his French kingdom to Louis the second son. Pepin, as other monarchs had done before him, loved to dwell at Verona, though fate willed it, that he should die and be buried at Milan (810). The legends relating to the Carlovingian period in Verona have left a visible form in the statues of Roland and Oliver which adorn the façade of the Duomo, where the two paladins stand as though to guard the beautiful entrance to the Cathedral. Many fables are circulated as to Pepin, around whose memory a halo of love and respect has arisen which is not wholly dimmed to this day. His tomb was said to be outside the church of S. Zeno, resting between it and the church of S. Procolo; and the seat of justice where he sat and administered the affairs of state, was pointed out among the excavations on the Colle di San Pietro. There is however nothing but tradition whereon to base either of these assertions,

though the people cling to them as tokens that their loved monarch lived and died in their midst.

The years that followed Pepin’s death and wherein the Carlovingian kings extended their sway over Italy, brought no events of moment to Verona. A new line of rulers came in after the Carlovingian monarchs in the person of Berengarius I., Duke of Friuli, and his successors. This Berengarius overcame his competitor Guido, Duke of Spoleto (886) and reigned in North Italy till the year 923. The close of Berengarius’s life is tragic and pathetic in the extreme. He had retired to Verona after a defeat which he had sustained at the hands of Rudolph, Duke of Burgundy. A conspiracy was here set on foot to murder him, headed by one Flambert, a noble of Verona, who stood high in King Berengarius’s favour, and whose son had been held at the font by the king in person. Berengarius was apprised of the plot, and sent for Flambert to warn him in his turn. He reminded him of the love which existed between them; of the favours he had heaped on him, he pointed out to him the enormity of his crime, and the small gain that could accrue to him therefrom. At last taking a gold cup he gave it to him bidding him keep it as a pledge of the goodwill henceforward to exist between them, and reminding him that he, the king, was also his son’s godfather. The same night Berengarius, to show that no trace of suspicion lurked in his mind, slept without guards, and instead of staying even within his fortified palace he caused his bed to be placed in an arbour in the garden. The next morning, as he was about to betake himself to church, Flambert, followed by some armed men, came to meet him, and making as though he would embrace him, stabbed him to death. No cause has come to light to explain the reason that prompted so foul a treachery, and the fact that Flambert was executed by the order of Milo, Count of Verona, who rushed to avenge the king, carries with it very little satisfaction.

Berengarius was succeeded in turn by Rudolph, Duke of Burgundy; then by Hugh, Duke of Provence, and his son Lothair; afterwards by Berengarius II. and his son Adalbert. These rulers were for the most part also marquises of Tuscany, and their connection with Verona did not affect her history to any great or stirring extent. Their power came to an end with Berengarius II. who was overthrown by Otho I. of Saxony, Emperor of Germany, and for a while German supremacy was paramount throughout the land. During that time a series of counts and marquises filled the office of chief magistrate in Verona. They acted, it is true, as vassals of the Emperor, but occasionally they shewed a spirit of independence and insubordination that cannot always have been reassuring to their feudal lord.

Verona was often the gathering place for Councils and Diets; and a noted one took place there in June 983, under the presidency of Otho II., when warriors, prelates, and men of letters flocked to the town from Saxony, Franconia, Suabia, Bavaria, Lorraine, and from many parts of Italy as well. The Duke of Bohemia sent his representative, nor were ladies excluded from the assembly, for not only was Otho’s wife there, the beautiful Greek Theophania, daughter of the Emperor of the East, but also his mother Adelaide of Burgundy, the widow of Otho the Great. The diet was held in order to consider the ever vexed question of the sovereignty of the kingdom of Italy, and the Emperor was successful in procuring the unanimous nomination of his son Otho as future king of the Peninsula as well as of Germany.

No incident of importance disturbed the history of

Verona now for some time. Her intercourse with Germany kept her trade and interests active beyond the limits of ordinary existence, without at the same time involving her in wars and dissensions over the rights and powers to be adjudged to the monarchs whether of France or of Germany, or to their rivals and foes the Popes of Rome. This state of things however came to an end when the struggle between Henry IV. and Gregory VII. blazed forth in all its violence; and men and cities were forced to take sides with either the Pope or the Emperor. Verona threw in her lot with Henry IV. Two bishops of Verona in turn subscribed to edicts published against Hildebrand, and Henry was supported anew by the town when he passed through it to wage war upon the Countess Matilda of Tuscany. Even when the Lombard cities forsook the Emperor Verona remained faithful to him, foreseeing that only in this way could religious peace be maintained, and anxious at the same time to put an end to feudalism, and to compass the introduction of the Free Communes by her own severance from the Empire.

The adhesion of the Veronese to the Imperial cause did not blind them however to their religious duties, and though no abundance of documents exists to record their prowess, there is sufficient evidence to show that the people of Verona took their share in more than one crusade, and that on two occasions their Bishops went with them.

In the meanwhile the power of the Italian Communes was working its way to the fore, establishing its principles, and binding one town after another to its cause. It failed though in laying that substratum of unity that where so many were involved could alone ensure strength; and though ignorant of its action it was gradually preparing the way for the incoming of the “signori” or tyrants who were to domineer over each town of importance throughout the Peninsula. The arrival of Frederick Barbarossa in Italy in 1154 was to test to the utmost the new power of the Communes. Verona, and many another city besides, had at first intended to stand by the Emperor, and “maintain the Imperial crown and all its honour in Italy.” But such a course was rendered impossible by the Emperor’s own action. His cruelty towards Milan, his ambition, his rapaciousness, convinced every inhabitant south of the Alps that they had in him an enemy of no mean order, and that every effort was praiseworthy which sought to expel him from their midst. The Veronese were eager to give evidence of their readiness to aid in so laudable an effort, and the following incident will serve to show how keen they were to hasten Frederick’s departure out of Italy by fair means or foul. The story though is told only by German writers. Some native historians indeed question the narrative. They maintain that the events related never took place, and seek to exculpate their fellow-citizens from a charge of treachery over an act which, if it occurred, may be considered as that of desperate men bent on freeing their land from an invader and his forces. The Emperor Frederick Barbarossa had made one successful descent upon Italy; he had been to Rome to be crowned, and was then forced to return to Germany, his soldiers being weary of a longer absence from their homes. His way back led through Verona, “where,” according to Otto von Frisingen (a contemporary chronicler and a cousin of the Emperor’s), “it not being customary for the Veronese to grant a passage through their city to the Imperial arms, it was decided to build a bridge for them outside the town. On Frederick’s arrival in their midst, with an army which had laid waste all Italy, the Veronese flattered themselves that the work of avenging the whole of Lombardy lay in their hands. The bridge of boats built above the city was designed for vengeance, and was a trap rather than a bridge--the boats being tied together in such guise as only just to withstand the force of the current. Huge beams of timber were in the meanwhile to be floated down the river, which beating against the bridge were to break it at the moment when the Imperialists would cross it. The plot failed through a miscalculation as to time. The Imperial troops had hastened their march so as to escape from the bands of peasants who were known to be arming against them, and crossed the bridge in safety. The timber launched for their destruction arrived only to work havoc among their foes, for it broke up the bridge, and separated a great number of Veronese who had followed on the track of the Germans from their friends; and the Imperialists falling on them put them all to the sword. The Emperor was not strong enough at that moment to avenge the intended insult; he had no choice but to continue his journey, which he did crossing the mountains into Bavaria by the way of Trent and Botzen.”

This at least is the account given by the Imperial biographer; while the Veronese writers say that there is another side to the story, and that no treachery was intended. Be that as it may it certainly did not tend to improve the feeling entertained by the Emperor towards the people of Verona, while it confirmed on their side the advisability of protecting themselves as strongly as they could against the Imperial power and vengeance. For this intent they joined the League then forming in Lombardy (1164), which had for its object to arm against the common foe and fight till they had vanquished him. The League was warmly

supported by Pope Alexander III., and subscribed to by the towns of Verona, Padua, Vicenza, and the cities of the Marches. This federation was soon afterwards joined by Venice, and aroused such anxiety in Frederick’s mind that he hurried into Italy, collected as formidable an army as he could get together at Pavia, and determined to lay waste the country round Verona. The allies obtained a great triumph at Vigasio, in the Veronese territory, when the Emperor without striking a blow retired from before his foes, after having stood looking them in the face for five whole days. The League gathered fresh strength from this graceless retreat. More towns threw in their lot with the Guelph faction, and Frederick’s cause losing ground daily was finally overthrown on May 29, 1176, at the battle of Legnano. The peace signed after this great fight at Venice was witnessed by Bishop Ognibene of Verona, and the chief magnates of the city, among whom were the Podestă Turrisendo; Sauro di San Bonifacio, Count of Verona; two of the Avogadri family, and the Judge Cozone. The peace was signed actually at Chioggia in July, and soon after the Veronese delegates returned to their city where they were received with honours and rejoicings. Their return coincided with the completion of the basilica of S. Zeno “in pure, simple, most beautiful Romanesque style, the most perfect work of art of Veronese mediævalism.”[10] An inscription tells how the works were finished in 1178, and records that in the same year in which the campanile was completed “peace was restored between the Church and the Emperor.”

Peace was however far from being the general order throughout the land. Civil and intestinal wars were rife on every side; and each town of any size or weight was split up into two factions which held either for the Pope or Emperor, or occasionally for its own cause exclusively, regardless of any interest outside the walls.

In the factions that raged between private families in Verona that of the Montecchi and Cappelletti has obtained a renown as lasting as Time itself, noticed as it is by no meaner writers than Dante and Shakespeare. The Montecchi, as head of the Ghibelline faction in the town, were also in constant strife with many other of their neighbours, especially those who belonged to the opposite faction. A contest of more than ordinary violence occurred on May 16, 1206, when the family of San Bonifacio were at the head of the Guelph party. After a fierce encounter the Montecchi were worsted and expelled from the city. Their rivals, in order to strengthen their cause, appointed Azzo VI., Marquis of Este, to be Podestă of Verona. This Azzo had formerly belonged to the Ghibelline cause, but thought it more to his advantage to change his politics and side with the Guelphs. The Montecchi though defeated were not disheartened. They allied themselves with Bonifacio d’Este, the uncle of Azzo, and his enemy from private as well as public reasons, and, their ranks swelled by Ghibelline partisans, they returned in force to reinstate themselves once more in their native city. This was in the month of August of the same year. Azzo was seated in his council chamber when his foes burst in upon him. He barely escaped with his life, and had to retire from Verona leaving all he possessed behind him. Help however came to him from Mantua and from his own followers in Verona, and he likewise returned to the charge. The struggle lasted for over a month; each tower and stronghold held by the two factions changing hands constantly during that time. The Ghibelline faction was however the weaker one; and though they knew their cause to be hopeless they resolved to make a final and steady resistance in the only castle that yet remained to them. No hope of mercy or of pardon deceived or encouraged these desperate men. On the night of Saturday, September 8th, they awaited the on-coming of the foe, who were equally determined on their side to bring matters to an end. The attack was so well directed, the number of assailants so overwhelming, the besieged had to surrender, and were either put to the sword or taken captive. The castle was dismantled and burnt; the prisoners were sent to different dungeons; and the civil strife in the town was brought to a close for the time being. Peace however was not the normal condition of those days, and this example, cited from an old document which has come to light in recent years, is only given to show the nature and duration of these civil dissensions in a mediæval town.

The towns were not however blind to their own interests in so far as it behoved them to unite against the Emperor of Germany and prevent his gaining such a foothold in Italy as to jeopardise their liberties. The Lombard League, which had originally been formed against Frederick Barbarossa was renewed against his grandson Frederick II. in 1226 for a period of twenty-five years; and in it the cities of Lombardy swore to stand by one another, to preserve each other’s rights, and to maintain mutual peace. The question of peace exercised the minds of all men in Italy at that moment absorbingly. The Pope preached it from Rome in the hopes of furthering the cause of the Crusades; the towns advocated it from motives of commerce and industry; the nobles stood in need of it for the quieting of those feuds and rivalries which were fast draining their resources and undermining the life-blood of their families. In Verona the plea for peace was advocated by a powerful Dominican preacher, Fra Giovanni of Vicenza, a member of the noble family of Schio. He met with an enthusiastic reception, for he was armed not only with the Pope’s protection, but also with a purity of intention and zeal for his mission which furthered his cause immeasurably. He convoked a great assembly on the plain of Paquara, three miles outside Verona on the banks of the Adige; and on August 28, 1233, no less than 400,000 people flocked to hear him preach, and to renounce their rivalries and enmities at his bidding. “The whole population of Verona, Mantua, Brescia, Padua and Vicenza,” says Sismondi, “was gathered on the plain of Paquara, and the citizens of each of these Republics collected round their magistrates and their _carroccios_ (war-chariots). The inhabitants of Treviso, Venice, Ferrara, Modena, Reggio, Parma and Bologna were also there, ranged round their standards; the bishops of Verona, Brescia, Mantua, Bologna, Modena, Reggio, Treviso, Vicenza, Padua, the Patriarch of Aquileja, the Marquis of Este, the lords of Romano, and all those of the Veneto were there too at the head of their vassals.”[11]

The scene must have been a striking one, and unparalleled till then in the annals of history. Fra Giovanni ascended a pulpit in the midst of this vast concourse and harangued the crowd. He took for his text the words, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you,” and commanded his audience to forgive each other their offences and to follow after peace. His injunctions were obeyed. Peace became for the moment the universal law; the factions between the families of Este and da Romano were laid aside; Guelphs consorted with Ghibellines, and foes who a few days previously had met only to stab and outrage one another now exchanged the kiss of peace and swore to remain friends.

The preacher’s injunctions to forgive injuries were not observed by him himself when an excess of enthusiasm had raised him to the office of chief magistrate of Verona. He ordered the execution of sixty men and women belonging to the most respectable families of the town, whom he condemned as heretics, and who were all burnt alive.

The success obtained by Fra Giovanni at the assembly at Paquara proved his undoing. He became proud and ambitious; he aimed at becoming a ruler in those towns where he had preached peace and goodwill, and after a period of war, rebellion and imprisonment he retired to Bologna, shorn of all glory and leaving Lombardy a prey to insurrection and strife.

Verona was no exception to this condition of affairs. Her state was torn by rival factions, the one headed by the Counts of San Bonifacio; the other by the Montecchi (or Monticoli), the latter of whom Shakespeare has immortalized for us under the name of Montague. Their faction was supported on more than one occasion by Ezzelino da Romano, who finally succeeded in making himself lord of Verona, and who was thus the first of the tyrants to oust the power of the Communes and introduce that of the “_Signori_” in their stead. Ezzelino has left perhaps the most unenviable record among all the bloodthirsty tyrants of the Middle Ages. The Florentine historian Villani says of him that “he was the cruellest and most redoubtable tyrant that ever existed among Christians. By his might and tyranny he lorded it for a long time ... over the March of Treviso, and the town of Padua, and a great part of Lombardy. He made away with a fearful part of the citizens of Padua, and blinded a great number, ever of the best and noblest among them, taking away their possessions and sending them adrift to beg through the world. And many others by divers torments and martyrdoms he put to death, and in one hour caused 11,000 Paduans to be burnt.”

Nor has modern criticism passed a milder judgment on Ezzelino. Symonds speaking of him in his history of _The Renaissance in Italy_, says: “Ezzelino, a small, pale, wiry man with terror in his face and enthusiasm for evil in his heart, lived a foe to luxury, cold to the pathos of children, dead to the enchantment of women. His one passion was the greed of power, heightened by the lust for blood. Originally a noble of the Veronese Marches, he founded his illegal authority upon the captaincy of the Imperial party delegated to him by Frederic. Verona, Vicenza, Padua, Feltre and Belluno made him their captain in the Ghibelline interest, conferring upon him judicial as well as military supremacy. How he fearfully abused his power, how a crusade was preached against him,[12] and how he died in silence like a boar at bay, rending from his wounds the dressings that his foes had placed to keep him alive are notorious matters of history.... Ezzelino made himself terrible not merely by executions and imprisonments, but also by mutilations and torments. When he captured Friola he caused the population, of all ages, sexes, and occupations, to be deprived of their eyes, noses, and legs, and to be cast forth to the mercy of the elements. On another occasion he walled up a family of princes in a castle and left them to die of famine. Wealth, eminence, and beauty attracted his displeasure no less than insubordination or disobedience. Nor was he less crafty than cruel. Sons betrayed their fathers, friends their comrades under the fallacious safeguard of his promises. A gigantic instance of his scheming was the coup-de-main by which he succeeded in entrapping 11,000 Paduan soldiers, only 200 of whom escaped the miseries of his prisons. Thus by his absolute contempt of law, his inordinate cruelty, his prolonged massacres, and his infliction of plagues upon whole peoples, Ezzelino established the ideal in Italy of a tyrant marching to his end by any means whatever.”[13]

He must indeed ever rank as one of the most inhuman and brutal of monsters as far as bloodthirstiness and cruelty are concerned, but not even his bitterest foes can deny his talents as a warrior, his indomitable pluck, his energy, his presence of mind, no matter how great a difficulty encountered him, and his resource in the hour of danger. No defeat daunted him; no failure depressed him. He would originate some way out of a dilemma however inextricable it might seem; and in spite of overwhelming conditions he was never at his wits’ ends for an expedient. He succeeded in making himself recognised as lord of the towns of Verona, Vicenza, Padua, Feltre, Belluno, and Trent; and no Imperial league was formed in the North of Italy which did not include him as one of its most powerful members. In May 1238 his marriage with Selvaggia, a natural daughter of the Emperor Frederick II., was celebrated at S. Zeno at Verona; and a month later on the green in front of the same church Ezzelino and the Podestă of Verona, Bonaccorso del Palŭ, swore fealty to the Emperor and to his son Conrad. Their oath was received by Pier della Vigna, the Emperor’s famous chancellor, who according to Dante, “held both the keys of the heart of Frederick.”[14]

Ezzelino made as short work of his foes in Verona as in other towns. Their houses were thrown down; their persons tortured and killed. The house of San Bonifacio fared badly at his hands: the castle was dismantled (1243) and stands to this day in ruins; and most of the partisans of that noble house shared grimly in the discomfiture of their chief. After a successful career of thirty-three years Ezzelino’s star began to wane. His enemies--and he had many--resolved to make head against the designs he was now beginning to formulate against Milan, and opposed his forces on the Adda. He was defeated and taken to Soncino, where he died October 1, 1259, tearing open, it is said, his wounds with his own hands, preferring death rather than to see the overthrow of his schemes. The legends and fables which are circulated round Ezzelino are numerous and fantastic. Some have insisted that he was the child of the devil, no human mind and intellect being capable of committing the horrors and bloodthirsty deeds which he is said to have perpetrated. Dante places him in Hell in the “Bolgia” among the “tyrants who delighted in blood and gave themselves thereto.”[15]

The death of Ezzelino da Romano marks a change in Italian politics. The power of the Communes was henceforward to disappear entirely, and that of the “_Signori_” to come to the fore. In Verona the news of Ezzelino’s death, far from rousing the citizens to rejoicings over their restored liberty, awoke in them only the desire to re-establish the dignity and power of the Podestă so that in the hands of a chief magistrate their rights should be respected. Their choice fell upon Mastino della Scala, the son of one Jacopino della Scala, whose name first appears among those who formed a covenant with the people of Cremona in 1254.

The mention of the Scaligers brings with it the period of Verona’s greatest prosperity. The art, the literature, the romance of the city centres round the years in which the della Scalas reigned as lords of Verona, and in which they brought the town to a degree of prominence and splendour and importance which she had never reached before and to which she never attained again. The cruelties of Ezzelino da Romano were instrumental in bringing the della Scala family into notice. No less than three persons of that name had been put to death by Ezzelino, who were supposed to be some relations, even if not very near ones, of the new Podestă. The efforts made by some writers to claim an old and exalted lineage for the Scaligers has not been crowned with much success. One legend, based however on no very trustworthy

foundation, says that they sprang from a man of poor, nay vile condition, of the name of Jacopo Fico, who made ladders and sold them, and that from this the family took its name. The most generally accepted idea is though that Mastino della Scala, the first of the name who sprang into notability and who may be considered as the founder of the family, was a man of modest origin, and whose line in life was of a commercial nature. His position was a prominent one during Ezzelino’s reign of oppression and bloodshed; and that the tyrant had shown him some regard implies in itself that Mastino had known how to merit it. He was an absolute Ghibelline as to politics, a warrior ever ready to serve his country, and a worthy ancestor of the great men who followed him. Cipolla meanwhile bids us observe that neither as Podestă, nor as Captain was he lord of Verona in the literal sense of the words; he was only the first of the citizens, and never more than that.