no Emperor to head the Ghibelins, the King of Sicily was a child, and the government was unsettled. They had come back to Florence, from which they had been driven by the young Frederic, and under their government the city had gained great power in Tuscany. In 1254, called the Year of Victories, the Florentines took Volterra and Siena, and humbled Pisa. But Eccelino still tyrannized in the Veronese march, ruling almost as a sovereign, and his cruelties were imitated by his brother Alberigo in Treviso. Milan, which might have checked them, was torn by feuds between the nobles and people. At last a Crusade was preached against Eccelino by the Bishop elect of Ravenna, legate of Alexander the Fourth. A great number were

enlisted at Venice, both of those who had fled from the tyrant's cruelty, and many citizens of the Republic, which was endangered by Eccelino's great power. The crusading army took Padua, but for a time the war was ineffectual. In 1259 Eccelino crossed the Adda, hoping to be joined by the Milanese nobles. He was met by an army composed not only of Guelfs, but even of Ghibelins; he was defeated, wounded, and taken. In prison he tore the bandages from off his wounds, and so died. The next year his brother Alberigo and all his family were taken and slain with great cruelty.

2. Manfred, King of Sicily.—The Pope's power was much increased by the vacancy of the Empire, but yet both Innocent the Fourth and Alexander the Fourth found a power in their own city which they were forced to obey. The Roman people, as in the time of Arnold of Brescia, hoped for the restoration of their former greatness. They made Brancaleone of Bologna their Senator, giving him almost unlimited power. He restrained the disorders of the nobles; he forced the Bishop of Rome to dwell in his own city, and made alliance with Manfred the Regent of Sicily. The Senator, despite the Pope and the nobles, kept his office, save

for two years, until his death, which happened in the full tide of his power and popularity. Manfred, after he had won the southern kingdom for his nephew, reigned for a while in his name; but in 1258, on a rumour of Conradin's death, he was chosen King, and this raised the hopes of the Italian Ghibelins. All Tuscany, except Pisa and Siena, had become Guelfic; and the exiled Ghibelins of France, with Farinata degli Uberti at their head, begged the new King to help them. The King readily granted their request, and sent them a body of German cavalry to Siena, the headquarters of their League. Meanwhile the Guelfs, not only of Tuscany, but of Genoa, of Modena, even of Lombardy, flocked to the army of Florence. In 1260 the two armies of the Guelfs and Ghibelins met at Monteaperto on the Arbia. For a long time the battle was undecided, but just as Jacopo de' Pazzi and the Guelfic cavalry, which were in the centre of the Florentine line, were about to charge, Bocca degli Abati betrayed them, and rode off to the Ghibelins with a body of horse. Then the day was lost. A great number of Florentines were slain, and the carroccio was taken. The city fell into the hands of the Ghibelin confederates, and they took counsel to destroy it. But Farinata loved his city better than his party, and made such an eloquent appeal for her that Florence was saved. The loss in this battle of Monteaperto was very heavy, and for a time the power of the Guelfs in Tuscany, and indeed all through Italy, was at an end. Manfred now had great power, not only in his own kingdom but also as the head of the Ghibelins.

3. Charles of Anjou.-The plans of Pope Alexander the Fourth had come to nought. He had gained nothing from King Henry save money, and not as much of that as he wanted. He lived to see his party cast down, and the man whom he had made his enemy everywhere victorious. He

died in 1261. He was succeeded by a Frenchman, who took the title of Urban the Fourth. The new Pope sought a more vigorous ally than the English King. The Empire was disputed between Richard Earl of Cornwall, brother of our Henry the Third, and Alfonso the Tenth, King of Castile. The Pope wished to keep the Empire vacant as long as he could, and therefore he would not take the side of either candidate, or give either the great advantage which the crown of Sicily would bring. As he was a Frenchman, he naturally first asked Lewis the Ninth, the French King, to take the crown. The good King would not claim that which was not rightfully his, but his brother Charles Count of Anjou did not feel any such scruples, and when Pope Urban offered the crown to him, he accepted it very readily. The Count of Anjou was valiant and ambitious; he had great riches, for he had married Beatrix daughter of the Count of Provence, and held that large county in her right. Her three sisters were all Queens, and, it is said, that she had a mind that her husband should be a King as well as theirs, and that she therefore stirred him up to undertake the conquest of Sicily. Charles was received in Rome by Clement the Fourth, the successor of Pope Urban, and was declared Senator of the city. The Pope made him promise that, if at any time his heirs failed, then the kingdom of Sicily was again to be in the gift of the Pope; that it should never be held by the Emperor; and that he should pay tribute and homage to the Pope as his over-lord. In this way the Pope hoped to prevent anyone shutting him in, as Henry the Sixth and Frederic the Second had done, on the South and North. Pope Clement raised a great army for his new ally. He declared the war, which was about to begin, to be a Holy War or Crusade, and therefore he levied the taxes on the Churchmen which were always paid for an expedition against the Infidels. By the Pope's persuasion and by the money he raised, a

great army of French Crusaders was gathered together, and was brought down into Italy to the Count of Anjou. King Manfred was betrayed by a number of those whom he trusted, but still he set himself to resist the French manfully. In the early part of 1265 the King met the army of the Count at Grandella near Benevento. The fight was long and fierce. The Saracens, whom Manfred's father had placed in garrison in Luceria, followed him in great numbers, and did much hurt to the enemy with their arrows, but they were put to flight by the French men-at-arms. The French in turn were checked by the German horsemen, who charged with shouts of "Swabia!" but the Italian Ghibelins did not stand firm. The King was slain, and his army fled. Manfred was buried by the bridge of Benevento, but the Archbishop of Cosenza had his body taken up and left upon the banks of the Marino. This great battle and the death of King Manfred made the Count master of the kingdom. He destroyed the Saracen garrisons, and scattered the Ghibelin party. The Guelfs were now again in full power. They came back to Florence, from which they had been forced to fly by the battle of Monteaperto, and Charles was chosen Signor of the city for two years. Pisa, jealous of her rival's power, and hating the Guelfs, joined with the Ghibelin nobles to set up the young Conradin as King of Sicily. But their army was defeated by Charles at Tagliacozzo, 1268, and the unfortunate youth was beheaded at Naples by the order of the cruel enemy. This last blow crushed the hopes of the Ghibelins throughout Italy.

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4. Change in the Papal Policy.-The Guelfic cities triumphed in the victories of their ally, but Charles was not content with being their ally, he wished to be their master, and it was fortunate for Italian liberty that for two years he was absent on a crusade against the Infidels. Soon after his return, Tebaldo Visconti of Piacenza was chosen Pope, and took

the title of Gregory the Tenth. He deserves to be remembered for his fair conduct, and his desire for peace. Charles would soon have been master of Italy, and might even have gained the Imperial crown, if it had not been for Pope Gregory. The Pope restored the balance of power in Italy by bringing back the Ghibelin exiles, but at the same time he made them for a while live peaceably with the Guelfs. He also checked the Frenchman by restoring the Empire. Rudolf of Habsburg, founder of the second house of Austria, was elected in 1273; but he promised not to interfere with Charles in his kingdom, or in Tuscany. Pope Gregory might have done more if he had not been so set upon a crusade to recover the Holy Land; his desire for peace was that he might prepare the way for this Holy War, which was to be headed by the new Emperor. Nicolas the Third, who succeeded

Pope Gregory in 1277, followed a more distinctly Ghibelin policy partly by persuasion, and partly by force, he deprived Charles of the Vicariate of Tuscany, and the Senatorship of Rome, and raised the Ghibelin power everywhere in Italy. Nicolas was able to pursue this independent policy, because he had obtained from Rudolf a renunciation of all claims upon the city, and upon the vast territories of the Countess Matilda; so that from this time the Pope became a territorial sovereign in Italy. He was also helped in his plans by Milan. Ever since the battle of Corte Nuova the family of Pagano della Torre had had great influence in the city. In order to counteract them, the Archbishop elect, Otho Visconti, gathered round him a strong party of Ghibelin nobles. He thus got the upper hand, and Milan became a powerful ally of the Ghibelins in Lombardy. On the death of Pope Nicolas Charles took good care that the Cardinals should elect a Frenchman. The new Pope, Martin the Fourth, was quite obedient to his wishes. He soon got back nearly all the power he had lost, and would no doubt have gained very much more,