Battle of Montaperti: Siena Crushes Florence
By the mid-13th century, most Italian city-states had split into two rival factions contesting the balance of power between the Papacy and the Holy Roman Emperor: Guelphs, who backed papal authority, and Ghibellines, who backed the emperor. Florence was staunchly Guelph; neighbouring Siena, partly out of genuine conviction and partly to spite its larger rival, aligned Ghibelline. In 1260, a Sienese army bolstered by exiled Florentine Ghibellines (nobles previously driven from Florence by the ruling Guelph faction) and a contingent of German cavalry supplied by King Manfred of Sicily met a much larger Florentine Guelph force at Montaperti, just outside Siena. The battle turned decisively against Florence -- accounts describe treachery within the Florentine ranks, engineered by the exiled Ghibelline nobles who had infiltrated the army's command -- resulting in a rout that Dante Alighieri, writing decades later, would still describe as having 'dyed the Arbia red' with Florentine blood. The defeat was so severe that a subsequent Ghibelline council debated razing Florence to the ground entirely; the city was saved, according to tradition, only by the intervention of the Florentine Ghibelline nobleman Farinata degli Uberti, who argued that destroying his own homeland would be an unforgivable act regardless of factional loyalty. Florentine Guelph dominance was restored within a decade after Manfred's death removed Ghibelline Italy's chief protector.
- Year: 1260 CE
- Category: Military
