Ivo Ragazzini "Under The Green Claws"

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

and waited for the Bolognese near Faenza to forestall them before they put siege to the Ghibelline territory.

On 13 June 1275 as soon as the news came that the Bolognese had crossed the San Procolo

bridge and were preparing to invade the territories of Faenza, they waited no longer and went to meet them so they could face them in open country.

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

did the same with his men and immediately after they blew their trumpets, starting the battle of Ponte San Procolo.

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.

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

around the old castle of Cotignola, near Bagnacavallo, which, after fortified and enlarged, then became the town of Cotignola, where settlers from Forlì and Faenza were brought to provide for the capture of the Guelph Bagnacavallo.

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.

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

in the Forlì Apennines where all the Guelphs, who had been en route and had remained in the mountains of Forlì, retreated.

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.

After this series of victories, there were no rivals to the fame of the Ghibellines in Romagna.

Ravenna and Rimini had to surrender and become a confederation with the Ghibellines. They feared invasion and forged a peace pact with the Forlì people, evading alliances with the Bolognese, who were considered too weak to defend them.

It was a period that seemed to be totally successful for il Feltrano and the Forlì people, but nothing for the Bolognese.

This greatly worried the Bolognese and the Geremei, who feared the Lambertazzi would be forced to return to Bologna. So they began to increasingly protest to the pope requesting further military reinforcements.

This was also the period during which the legendary reputation was born of the cunning and the militarily undefeatable Feltrano, but the bulk of his work and fame, which would make the rounds of Europe, had yet to occur.

After all these repeated defeats, the Bolognese again asked Pope Nicholas III for help,

who, as moderate as he was, sent them Bertoldo Orsini, his nephew, with the title of Count of Romagna, with the objective of mediating and placating the situation between the Bolognese and Romagna.

Orsini recognized that he would need to stop trying to resolve the matter with arms and to reconcile the Lambertazzi and Geremei in Bologna more than to try to defeat the Ghibellines of Forlì, and that there could be no other remedy than to bring the Lambertazzi back to Bologna, return their properties to them and to make peace between the Ghibellines and Guelphs of that land.

And so, very wisely, he did.

But the Geremei accepted this decision badly and believed that the pontiff, because of the belligerence of the Ghibellines, would fight them and not let them into the city.

But Bertoldo Orsini said that the church embraced both and organized the return and a banquet of peace for both factions where Feltrano

also took part.

So, after the exile, the Lambertazzi returned to Bologna as brothers and peace seemed to have been made.

But that peace lasted only as long as Nicholas III was alive, when he died shortly thereafter, the new French pope, Martin IV, was not as meek as the former had been with the Ghibellines.

So, immediately after the death of Nicolas III, the Geremei and Lambertazzi again came to blows, and were driven out of Bologna and again took refuge in Faenza, which was still under the command of Guido da Montefeltro.

At the same time the Geremei turned to the newly elected French pope and asked him to organize a fearsome army to do away with the Ghibellines of Romagna once and for all.

Thus, with the support of the new pontiff, and the help of the King of France, Charles II d'Anjou, a real final crusade was organized, under the command of the French general Giovanni d'Appia, to be concluded once and for all against the last Ghibellines remaining in Italy.

At the time, after the victories over the heirs of Frederick II and the violent crusades against the Albigensian, the French army was considered unbeatable and terrible and what you will read from here on went down in history as the Dantean massacre of the "bloody heap" and I will tell you what happened and how everything turned out.