Battle of Montaperti (1260): Guelphs and Ghibellines at War

The Battle of Montaperti, fought on 4 September 1260 near the River Arbia east of Siena, was one of the bloodiest battles of medieval Italy. The Ghibelline city of Siena, helped by exiled Florentines and German knights sent by King Manfred of Sicily, routed a much larger army led by Guelph Florence. The defeat drove the Guelphs from Florence for several years and became a lasting memory in Tuscan politics and in Dante’s poetry.

Background: Guelphs and Ghibellines

In thirteenth-century Italy, the struggle between the popes and the Hohenstaufen emperors divided cities and families into two camps. Guelphs (from Welf, a German dynasty) generally sided with the papacy; Ghibellines (from Waiblingen, a Hohenstaufen castle) with the emperor. Local rivalries often mattered as much as grand loyalties.

Florence and Siena, neighbouring Tuscan cities competing for trade, banking and territory, took opposite sides. After 1250 Florence was ruled by a Guelph popular government. In 1258 it expelled leading Ghibelline families, including the Uberti, headed by Farinata degli Uberti, who found refuge in Siena.

Siena allied with Manfred, the Hohenstaufen king of Sicily since 1258. Florence demanded that Siena hand over the exiles, and war followed.

The campaign

In spring 1260 a Florentine army marched towards Siena. In a clash in May a small troop of Manfred’s German horsemen was defeated, and the Florentines captured the royal banner. Siena then received larger German reinforcements, commonly put at around 800 knights.

In late August the Florentines and their allies, including contingents from Lucca, Pistoia, Prato, Bologna and Orvieto, advanced again with a large army and encamped near Montaperti. Medieval sources give figures as high as 30,000 or more, which modern historians treat as exaggerated, but the Guelph army was clearly larger than Siena’s. Before the battle, according to Sienese tradition, the city solemnly dedicated itself to the Virgin Mary.

The battle

On 4 September the Sienese and Ghibelline army attacked. The German cavalry charged the Florentine lines, and the fighting continued for hours. At a critical moment, according to the Florentine chronicler Giovanni Villani, Bocca degli Abati, a Ghibelline sympathiser fighting in the Florentine ranks, cut off the hand of the cavalry standard-bearer, Jacopo de’ Pazzi. The banner fell and panic spread.

A late attack by Sienese troops on the Florentine flank completed the rout. Florence’s carroccio, the ox-drawn wagon carrying the city’s standards, was captured, along with the war bell known as the Martinella. Chroniclers report around 10,000 dead and many thousands taken prisoner. These numbers cannot be checked, but the slaughter was remembered as extraordinary.

Key people

• Farinata degli Uberti (died 1264): leader of the exiled Florentine Ghibellines, who fought with Siena.
• Manfred (c. 1232–1266): Hohenstaufen king of Sicily, who sent German cavalry to aid Siena.
• Provenzano Salvani (died 1269): leading Sienese Ghibelline politician of the period.
• Bocca degli Abati: Florentine Ghibelline accused of betraying the Guelph army during the battle.

Consequences

Florentine Guelph leaders fled the city within days, and the Ghibellines took control of Florence. At a Ghibelline council held at Empoli, some allies proposed destroying Florence altogether. Farinata degli Uberti is said to have opposed the plan alone, saving his city.

The victory did not last. Charles of Anjou, brought into Italy by the papacy, defeated and killed Manfred at the Battle of Benevento in February 1266. The Guelphs returned to Florence, and in June 1269 Siena was defeated at Colle di Val d’Elsa, where its leader Provenzano Salvani was killed. Charles’s power in Italy would later be shaken by the Sicilian Vespers of 1282.

Montaperti in Dante

Dante Alighieri, born in Florence in 1265, grew up among the memories of Montaperti. In Inferno, Canto 10, of the Divine Comedy, he meets Farinata, who is honoured for defending Florence at Empoli but punished as a heretic. Dante recalls “the havoc and the great slaughter that dyed the Arbia red”.

In Canto 32, Dante finds Bocca degli Abati frozen in the ice of Antenora, the zone of Hell reserved for traitors to their country or party. Dante strikes his face with his foot and pulls his hair to make him reveal his name, a sign of how bitterly the betrayal was remembered in Florence.

Legacy

In Siena, Montaperti became a cornerstone of civic pride. The dedication of the city to the Virgin shaped Sienese religious art and identity, and the victory was celebrated for centuries. A small stone pyramid on the hill of Montaperti marks the traditional site of the battle.

Timeline

• 1250: A Guelph popular government takes power in Florence.
• 1258: Florence expels Ghibelline families; Manfred becomes king of Sicily.
• 1260, May: Florentines defeat a small German force near Siena.
• 1260, 4 September: Battle of Montaperti.
• 1260, September: Ghibellines take control of Florence.
• 1266, 26 February: Manfred is killed at Benevento.
• 1269, June: Siena is defeated at Colle di Val d’Elsa.

Why it matters

Montaperti shows how the Guelph-Ghibelline conflict shaped the politics, wars and literature of medieval Italy. The battle overturned Florence’s government for a time and lives on in Dante’s Inferno.