Papal politics in Tuscany
The open clash between Manfred and the Papacy had weakened Ghibelline fortunes throughout Italy. Nowhere was this clearer than in Siena. After Montaperti the city had embraced a staunchly Ghibelline government, openly allied to the King of Sicily. Yet Pope Urban IV’s long‑standing interdict—imposed in punishment for Siena’s Swabian sympathies—gradually sowed unrest. Many citizens, especially those whose livelihoods depended on dealings with the Curia, grew resentful of the harsh economic and spiritual isolation.
Taddeo di Bartolo (1403), Saint Thomas Aquinas Submitting His Office of Corpus Domini to Pope Urban IV, Philadelphia Museum of Art
On 30 April 1262 street riots erupted between Guelfs and Ghibellines; they were crushed with violence, ending in the murder of a Ghibelline leader. By December a number of leading families—the Salimbeni, Tolomei and Piccolomini among them—abandoned Siena and sought refuge in the fortress of Radicofani, under papal protection. Urban IV welcomed the exiles, formally restored them to the Church, and thereby gave official birth to Siena’s Guelf Party, which began to reorganise itself politically and militarily under papal patronage.
The Pope soon turned the screw on Florence as well. Although now ruled by pro‑Swabian Ghibellines, the city depended on its merchant fortunes. In August 1263 Urban IV struck at those interests, ordering the seizure of Florentine wares bought in Flanders and at the French fairs.
The effect was swift: by the end of the month many of Florence’s great merchants had sworn loyalty to the Pope in order to recover their goods and their trade[1]. Emblematic was the decision taken by the powerful merchant Cavalcante degli Spini: on 12 August 1263, together with sixteen partners, he agreed to leave Florence before the end of October and seek refuge in Church‑loyal towns, even pledging military assistance to the Florentine Guelfs exiled in Lucca. In this way the papal offensive steadily sapped the Tuscan Ghibelline front, stripping it of vital capital and of key men who now placed themselves directly under papal authority[2].
Manfred’s Plan
Throughout 1264 the political and military struggle sharpened dramatically. On one side stood Charles of Anjou—Pope Urban’s chosen king of Sicily—striving to raise an invasion force for Italy. Papal propaganda and fiery preachers exhorted French nobles and knights to enlist in what Urban IV styled a genuine crusade against Manfred. Yet in France the levy of money and men advanced only with difficulty, hampered by the indifference of many barons and the cool hostility of King Louis IX, who cared far more for planning another eastern crusade than for Italian affairs[3].
Determined to pre‑empt his enemies and strike at the root of the threat, Manfred resolved upon an audacious move: seizing of Rome and the capturing the Pope, who was then residing in Orvieto. In the summer of 1264 three separate columns set out at once:
Atelier of the Master of Troyes (1400-1410), Granded Chroniques de France – ms. 512, fol. 300v, Bibliothèque municipale de Toulouse
From the east advanced a force of German knights and Saracen archers under Percevalle Doria, threading through the Duchy of Spoleto with orders to snatch the Pontiff from Orvieto itself. From the south, the Neapolitan captain Riccardo Filangieri was to cross the river Liri and occupy Rome. From the north, cavalry dispatched by Giordano d’Agliano in the Marches would back the Roman Ghibelline leader Pietro di Vico, who was to raise the city in revolt at the decisive moment.
On paper the enterprise looked overwhelming. In practice it was a disaster. Pietro di Vico, after an initial triumph at Sutri, was driven out and his rising in the Eternal City collapsed under pressure from Angevin troops led by Jacques Ganthelme. Percevalle Doria drowned by accident in the river Nera near Arrone; leaderless and shaken, his men were quickly beaten back by a papal host under Boniface of Canossa. Filangieri, hesitant and over‑cautious, scarcely crossed the frontier before retreating—fearful of malaria and, above all, of the lack of co‑ordinated support from the other wings. The whole Sicilian offensive foundered, undone by faulty tactics, wretched communication and, most curious of all, Manfred’s own choice to remain safe in the castle of Lagopesole instead of commanding in person[4].
Consequences of Manfred’s failure
The failure dealt the king a bitter political and moral blow. Papal propagandists seized on the episode, decrying the brutality of an assault aimed at kidnapping the Vicar of Christ and denouncing Manfred’s use of Saracen bowmen—those vaunted archers of Lucera, proud legacy of his father Frederick II—as an outrage beyond forgiveness. While the Roman and papal front grew ever stronger, Tuscany offered a final twist of irony: on 14 August 1264 the last Guelf stronghold, Lucca, fell to the combined Ghibelline armies of Pisa and Florence. Yet that isolated success could not outweigh the collapse of Manfred’s grand design. Across Europe his stature was gravely diminished; the king who dreamed of empire now stood exposed, his reputation bleeding from self‑inflicted wounds.
Giorgio Vasari (1563-1565), Clemente IV hands his insigna to the captains of the Guelph Part.
Palazzo Vecchio Museum, Florence
On the 2nd of October 1264 Pope Urban IV died in Perugia, leaving Italy fatally polarised. After a tormented four‑month conclave the cardinals chose Frenchman: on the 5 February 1265 Guy Foucois became Clement IV. A seasoned jurist and former bishop of Narbonne, Foucois was known for his sympathy toward Charles of Anjou, though he remained wary of ceding too much temporal ground to the Angevin dynasty.
On 30 April 1265 Clement sealed a pact with Charles: in return for the Sicilian crown the Angevin promised to relinquish the title of Senator of Rome after three years and to refrain from any direct bid for Tuscany or the cities of northern Italy. He also guaranteed the privileges of the kingdom’s nobles and communes, hoping thereby to erode their loyalty to Manfred.
Lacking any dynastic claim, Charles’s investiture was justified by Clement with reference to the treaty of 1059 between Pope Nicholas II and Robert Guiscard, which affirmed the pontiff’s right to appoint fresh rulers in time of necessity[5].
The “Manifesto to the Romans”
News of the pact reached Manfred swiftly. Determined to seize Rome before the Angevin host could arrive, he dispatched from Foggia, on 24 May 1265, a “Manifesto to the Romans” drafted by the brilliant chancery rhetorician Pietro da Prezza. Addressed to the city’s elite, the letter called for an uprising against Charles of Anjou and offered protection and favour to all Romans who would rally to the Swabian cause[6].
(late 13th century), De Arte Venandi cum Avibus, ms. Pal. Lat. 1071, fol 1v, Vatican Apostolic Library
The appeal, alas, arrived too late. Only three days earlier—on 21 May—Charles had sailed into the Tiber with a Provençal fleet of twenty‑seven galleys and thirteen smaller vessels, landing some five hundred dismounted heavy cavalry and a thousand crossbow‑men. The sudden, well‑executed descent galvanised the Guelf front and gravely undermined Manfred’s position in central Italy. The Sicilian king nevertheless mustered a massive counter‑offensive, summoning every available force—German mercenaries, Apulian knights, Saracen archers—from across his realm. On 7 June 1265, writing from Benevento, he ordered his Tuscan vicar, Guido Novello, to march on Rome and close a pincer around the newcomer. The effort proved futile: by the end of June the Tuscan Ghibellines had been soundly beaten at Radicofani and driven back towards Siena, while Charles consolidated Guelf control throughout the region[7].
By late July Manfred made one last bid to seize Rome from the east, advancing through Tivoli, yet the city’s formidable walls barred his path. Meanwhile Charles of Anjou manoeuvred deftly in Manfred’s rear, menacing the supply‑lines and preventing any junction of the king’s scattered columns. Forced to abandon the attempt, Manfred fell back on his own lands; by mid‑August he had withdrawn first to Capua and then to his favoured fortress of Lagopesole. The Sicilian contingents left behind filtered home empty‑handed. A second, unequivocal reverse—military and political—had cleared the road for Charles’s advance into the Kingdom of Sicily.
In January 1266 the Angevin host crossed the frontier almost unopposed, smashing the outworks Manfred had so carefully prepared. The fall of Rocca d’Arce and the decisive action at San Germano, where the Franco‑Provençal knights stormed the Swabian field‑fortifications and scattered the German and Saracen cavalry, brought the entire defensive system crashing down. Sensing the Hohenstaufen grasp falter, southern towns—Gaeta, Venafro, Sessa Aurunca, and, above all, Naples—rose in revolt and flung their gates wide for the invader; Capua too grew untenable. Manfred, his army demoralised and depleted, resolved to retire towards Apulia and join the still‑intact forces in Abruzzo under Conrad of Antioch. He never made it. Near Benevento Charles’s army overtook him. It was 26 February 1266, and the two hosts braced for the clash that posterity would remember as the Battle of Benevento[8].
The Battle of Benevento
We do not have exact figures for the two armies: both had more than three thousands knights, followed by an unspecified number of infantrymen. Manfred divided his forces into three battalions, deploying in the front line his formidable Saracen archers, behind whom was a battalion of twelve hundred German mercenaries protected by the first plate armours, a novelty for the time. The second battalion was composed of Italian mercenaries and Saracen light cavalry, while the third included various loyal feudal lords of the Kingdom of Sicily, led by Manfred himself. Charles d’Anjou had adopted a similar three-battalion arrangement, with troops from France, Languedoc, Flanders, and a large group of Guelph knights from Florence.
In the cold morning, the imperial light cavalry initiated the battle, advancing on the bridge protected by archers, but were soon repelled by the first Angevin battalion. Perhaps rashly, perhaps by mistake, the battalion of heavy German cavalry suddenly charged against the French troops. Their charge was devastating, and they advanced inexorably through the enemy ranks: the weapons could do nothing against the heavy plate armours. Charles d’Anjou also sent the second battalion, hoping to slow down the imperial advance.
(15th century) ms. Français 230, f. 261v, Bibliothèque Nationale de France
It was in the heat of battle that the infantry discovered the weak point of the plate armour: the armpits were not covered. The German mercenaries began to fall, and at the cry of “to the swords, to the swords, strike the steeds!” they began to hit the German mounts, more vulnerable than their riders. Even the Angevin archers lowered their aim, and chaos ensued. The imperial troops fell back, the French conquered the bridge and quickly surrounded Manfred’s camp. Seeing the imminent defeat, various nobles of Sicily turned their backs on the King, leaving him alone to defend himself with a few loyal companions.
Legend has it that among them stood the ageing knight Occorsius, who had served the father, Frederick II, with the very same resolve that he now showed to the son, Manfred. The knight turned to his king and said:
“Where now are your fiddlers, where your poets, whom you loved more than knights and esquires, who hoped the foe would dance to their sweet tones[9]“.
King Manfred, in a last heroic gesture, exchanged his royal surcoat with that of a friend, and threw himself into the fray, hoping to turn the tide of the battle in a third, desperate assault. It is said that he was wounded in the chest, but continued to fight until a blow to the face split his forehead, killing him.
(1350-1360), Le Roman de la Rose
ms. 1126, Paris – Bibliothèque de Sainte-Geneviève, Paris
WWho will buy Manfred?”
Manfred’s host was cut to pieces in a brutal, desperate clash. So many fell that the field lay carpeted with the bodies of men and horses alike. The horror impressed itself on the chronicler‑bishop Saba Malaspina, who wrote:
“So great, therefore, was the slaughter of the fighters that on the battlefield—completely covered by the bodies of the slain—no empty spot remained. The carcasses of the horses lay upon the corpses of the men. Hardly could an uninjured corpse be found, for each lay mutilated by the force of mighty blows; and there they lay, bereft of their proper form, the indistinguishable bodies of the fallen[10]”.
(1375-1380), Grandes Chroniques de France
ms. Français 2813, BNF, Paris
On Sunday 28 February a common soldier led a donkey through the carnage, a corpse slung across its back, crying, “who will buy Manfred?” Brought before Charles of Anjou, the man was ordered to show his prize. Count Tommaso of Caserta and the brothers Giordano and Bartolomeo Lancia identified the body; Giordano covered his face and wept: “Alas, alas, my lord!”.
Some French knights begged that so valiant a foe be granted noble obsequies. Charles replied that he would have consented—had Manfred not died under excommunication. Yet, as he informed the Pope next day, he commanded that the corpse be buried honourably, if without religious rite. It was lowered into a shallow pit at the foot of the Benevento bridge, and every passing soldier cast a stone upon it until a cairn rose over the fallen king[11].
Manfred’s defeat and the ruin of his army ended the Hohenstaufen dominion in Italy and all but extinguished the Ghibelline cause. The Kingdom of Sicily fell with scarcely a struggle; Ghibelline resistance lingered only in scattered pockets. Those who had summoned the French prince to break Manfred’s yoke soon realised their folly. An anonymous chronicler laments:
“O King Manfred! In those days we did not know you, but now—thrice over—we weep for you. We thought you a ravening wolf among the grazing sheep of this realm; yet now, beholding the present lordship that we desired through our fickleness and levity, beguiled by lofty promises, we acknowledge that you were a but gentle lamb. Now we understand how sweet were the commands of your rule, while we taste those—far more bitter—of the other[12]“.
It had taken sixteen years and three popes, yet the Papacy had finally achieved its aim: Manfred of Sicily lay dead, southern Italy was in French hands, and the Pars Imperii stood grievously undermined. While the imperial House of Hohenstaufen now rested in the hands of Conradin of Swabia – a boy of scarcely fourteen – Tuscany was left to confront the one impulse that had consumed all who had opposed Ghibelline power in the wake of Montaperti: vengeance.
Bibliography
Primary Sources
- Alighieri, D. (2023). Purgatorio (A. M. Chiavacci Leonardi, Ed., 27th ed.). Milan: Mondadori, Oscar Classici.
(Original work composed ca. 1320) - Malaspina, S. (13th century). Rerum Sicularum Historia. [Medieval manuscript].
- Villani, G. (1991). Nuova Cronica (G. Porta, Ed.). Parma: Fondazione Pietro Bembo / Guanda.
(Original work written ca. 1348) - Salimbene de Adam. (13th century).Cronica.
- Paris, M. (1872). Chronica Majora (H. R. Luard, Ed., Vol. 5). London: Longman, Green, Reader & Dyer.
- Pseudo-Jamsilla. (13th century). Historia de rebus gestis Frederici II imperatoris eiusque filiorum Conradi et Manfredi. In Rerum Italicarum Scriptores.
Secondary Sources
- Abulafia, D. (1993). Frederick II: A Medieval Emperor (G. Mainardi, Trans.). Turin: Einaudi.
- Delle Donne, F. (2019). The Gate of Knowledge: Culture at the Court of Frederick II of Swabia [La porta del sapere]. Roma: Carocci.
- Grillo, P. (2019). Manfred of Swabia [Manfredi di Svevia]. Roma: Carocci.
- Houben, H. (2009). Federico II: imperatore, uomo, mito. Bologna: Il Mulino.
- Kantorowicz, E. H. (1931). Frederick the Second, 1194–1250 (E. O. Lorimer, Trans.). New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing.
- Maire Vigueur, J.-C. (2003). Cavalieri e cittadini. Guerra, conflitti e società nell’Italia comunale. Bologna: Il Mulino.
- Runciman, S. (1997). The Sicilian Vespers: A History of the Mediterranean World in the Later Thirteenth Century. Bari: Dedalo.
[1] For the internal politics of Florence and Siena after Montaperti, reference is generally made to Paolo Grillo, Manfredi di Svevia, Carocci, 2019 and Duccio Balestracci, La Battaglia di Montaperti.
For the seizures of Florentine goods, Les registres d’Urbain IV, II/1 pp. 159-59, doc. 337; pp. 173-76, docc. 362-364, mentioned in Paolo Grillo, Manfredi di Svevia, Carocci, 2019
[2] Saba Malaspina, Rerum Sicularum Historia, XIII sec.
[3] Steven Runciman, The Sicilian Vespers, a history of the mediterranean world in the later thirteenth century, Cambridge University Press, 1958, p.67
- Saba Malaspina, 13th century; Rerum Sicularum Historia, Book 3, chapter 10 and following, mentioned in Lodovico Antonio Muratori, Rerum Italicarum scriptores, vol 8 (1726), Mediolani : ex typographia Societatis Palatinae in Regia Curia
- Die Urkunden Manfreds, p. 318, doc. 134, cited in Paolo Grillo, 2019
- Steven Runciman, The Sicilian Vespers, a history of the Mediterranean world in the later thirteenth century, Cambridge University Press, 1958, p.67
[5] Runciman, S. (1958). The Sicilian Vespers: A History of the Mediterranean World in the Later Thirteenth Century. Cambridge University Press, pp. 80–83
[6] Grillo, Manfredi di Svevia, XII, 5
[7] Giovanni Villani, Nuova Cronica, Book VII, Chapter 3 and Runciman, The Sicilian Vespers, p. 84
- Grillo, Manfredi di Svevia, XII, 5
- Saba Malaspina, Rerum Sicularum Historia (Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, Vol. 8, Capitolo X)
- Steven Runciman, The Sicilian Vespers (1958), p.86-87
- Giovanni Villani, Nuova Cronica, Book VII, chapter 6
[9] Kantorowicz, E. H. (1931). Frederick the Second, 1194–1250, p. 328 (E. O. Lorimer, Trans.). New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing.
[10] “Ita est igitur pugnantium tanta strages, quod in campo pugnae, quem omnino tegebant corpora occisorum, aliquid vacuum non remansit. Equorum corpora super hominum cadavera quiescebant. Vix cadaver integrum poterat inveniri, cum iacerent singula magnorum ictuum violentia mutilata, starentque sine figura propria indistincta corpora versorum.”
Saba Malaspina Rerum Sicularum Historia, Book 3, Chapter 11 in Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, Vol. 8
[11] Steven Runciman, The Sicilian Vespers, p.95
[12] “O Rex Manfrede! te tunc non cognovimus, quem nunc merito deploramus. Te lupum credebamus rapacem inter oves pascuales huius regni; sed praesentis respectu dominii, quod de mobilitatis et inconstantiae more sub magnorum profusione gaudiorum anxie mirabamur, agnum mansuetum te fuisse cognoscimus. Iam fuisse dulcia tuae potestatis mandata sentimus, dum amarum et malorum gustamus.”
Pseudo-Jamsilla, Historia de rebus gestis Frederici II, in Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, vol. VIII, column 609
