Then there arose in the Commonalty new factions with, the ancient name of Guelfs and Ghibellines, but impelled by local interest. The conquered. feudality and the increasing power of the lower 'orders took part in these discords, but neither side gained a definite victory. The economic condition being thus imperilled by the -instability ofthe government and continual wars, the was formed of substituting for the consuls a governor,• potestas, of the order of .cavaliers, chosen from other cities and foreign to the local factions. This was accomplished by degrees. At first by an unusual method — sus pension of the consulate; then, in the first 10 ,years of the 3d century, by stable and regular method.
, 'The new provision proved inefficacious, be cause the new authorities lacked the material strength necessary to overcome the factions.
•Thus..sometimes a governor was drawn into their discords; and the 'people formed in several :commune of their own, with a captain of the people at its had Under similar con •itions, a party requires unity of action and one ruler. There was at the had of this one a -leader, of an illustrious house, who sometimes deserted his own class to defend that of the people. Thus, the factions became identified with their head, and the dissensions between the two patties became dissensions between rival houses. When the head of the triumphant fac tion, who Might also be the mayor himself or the• captain of the people, held an unlimited le:inr•ad the urban authority, there should be a same government — the signora, who represented a necessary consequence of the new political and social conditions of the Commune. They do not represent a special official but the sum of the political power of the government. The first rignoria arose in the latter half of the 3d century, in the form of a provisional dictator ship bound to the interests of the faction ; later on, they became more stable, for the people had lost the consciousness of their rights, and, by the introduction of a mercenary soldiery, the practice of arms; and also owing to the fact that the signore: promoted the interests of their own people.
Frederick II ruled according to Barbarossa's methods and consequently the dissensions with the papacy and the Communes led to the for mation of a second Lombard League. The war was ended in 1250 through the death of the em peror, and without any treaty. The Italian cities maintained their independence. The im perial power remained vacant until 1312, in which year it was resumed by Henry VII, but it had become a mere shadow of its former su premacy, an honorary position conferred on the king of Germany after his coronation at Rome. The papacy took from the last Suabian princes (Conrad and Manfred) the kingdom of Sicily in order to bestow it on Charles of Anjou, who was not successful in his contest with the era pire; thus even the excellent mind of Boniface VIII had not the power to re-establish the theocracy, now quite incompatible with the in tellectual and moral development of the laity. By degrees in the political order the papacy was transformed into an elective principality, re stricted to one portion of Italy.
After this period the history of medieval Italy became the history of its particular states and should be studied separately in separate ar ticles. Here the history is only treated of as a
whole.
The popes, not feeling secure in Rome, moved the Holy See to Avignon. On the .re establishment of the pontifical authority by Albornoz into the Ecclesiastical State, they re turned, but the Western schisms weakened their authority. At length they took direct and real possession of the Roman Commune — which be came an administrative entity —and exercised an uncertain sovereignty in the other portion of the Pontifical states.
The kingdom of Sicily, their fief, by the war of the Sicilian Vespers was divided into two kingdoms: Sicily under the kings of Aragon and Naples under the rule of the line of An jou; then under the Durazzo; and lastly, under Alfonso of Aragon, who left Sardinia, Sicily and Aragon to his brother John; Naples to his natural , son Ferdinand. Genoa, mistress of Corsica, destroyed the naval power of Pisa, and for its own commerical interests waged a bitter war against Venice; after this being weakened by internal discords, she passed under the pro tectorate of Milan, or of France. Florence con quered Arezzo, Pistoia and Pisa. In 1400 the Medici, without any title, or external mark of authority, became the arbiters of the Commune. In Tuscany the signorie insinuated themselies like a sporadic growth; and the Commune con tinued as before in Florence, Siena and Lucca. Venice, mistress of the Adriatic through the domination of Istria and Dalmatia, extended her dominion into the by the Fourth Crusade, and in the Occident her conquests in chided all Venetia and part of Lombardy. In upper Italy the signorian placed the aminor signorina' under subjection. The princely family of Visconti arose in Milan and 'conquered almost all Lombardy, and for a time other regions, and in 1395 obtained the •title of dulces. When. the Visconti family Was extinct, Milan was ruled by the Ambrosian Republic; then she again became a dukedom under the Sforzas. The House of Savoy extended its dominion in as far as the Sesia, and under Amadeus VIII, in 1416, rose to the ducal dig nity. All these states, although prosperous in respect to political economy and cultute, *ere weak on account of Military and institutional drawbacks which finally led to 'their decadence in modern times.
Bibliography.— Troya, Carlo, 'Storia Italia del medio-evo' (16 vols., Naples 56) ; Hegel,. Carl, der Yergattung m Italien seit der Zeit riimischen Herrschaft bis =In Ausgang der Zwelf ten Jahrhunderts) (2 vols., Leipzig 1847); Ficker, Julius, Zur Reschs-und Recht geschichte (4 vols., Innsbruck 186& 74) ; Lavisse, Ernest and Rambaud, Alfred, 'Histoire generale du IV siècle i nos Jorus) (Vols. I, II, III, Paris 1893-94); Hartmann, L. M., 'Geschichte Italians in Mittelalter) (Leipzig 1897-1915), and 'Le Rovine del Mon do Antico; traduzione di G. Lazzalto con ag giunte e correzioni dell' autore' (Rome 1904)7 Villari, Pasquale, 'Medieval Italy from Charle magne to Henry VIP ; trans. by C. Hulton (London 1910) ; Hodgkin, Thomai, 'Italy and Her Invaders' (Oxford 1885,99).