- Battle of Campaldino
Infobox Military Conflict
caption=
conflict=Battle of Campaldino
partof=the conflict betweenGuelphs and Ghibellines
date=June 11 ,1289
place=Campaldino ,Tuscany , present-dayItaly
result=Decisive Guelph victory
combatant1=Florence Pistoia Lucca Siena Prato (small Guelph factions)
combatant2=Arezzo (Ghibelline Army)
commander1=Amerigo di Narbona Guillaume da Durfort
commander2=Guglielmino degli Ubertini
strength1=10,000 infantry 1,160 cavalry
strength2=10,000 infantry 800 cavalry
casualties1=300 killed
casualties2=1,700 killedThe Battle of Campaldino was a battle between the
Guelphs and Ghibellines onJune 11 1289 . Mixed bands of pro-papalGuelf forces ofFlorence and allies,Pistoia ,Lucca ,Siena andPrato , all loosely commanded by the paid "condottiero " Amerigo di Narbona with his own professional following, met aGhibelline force fromArezzo including the perhaps reluctant bishop, Guglielmino degli Ubertini, in the plain of Campaldino, which leads fromPratovecchio toPoppi , part of the Tuscan countryside along the upperArno called theCasentino . One of the combatants on the Guelph side wasDante Alighieri , twenty-four years old at the time.Later, in the mid-14th century,
Giovanni Villani recorded the long-remembered details— as Florentines remembered them— in his chronicle, though the "casus belli" he offers are merely conventional "outrages" on the part of Arezzo; the elaborately staged raid and fight led by aristocrats on both sides sounds like stylized gang warfare, though carried out, according to Villani, under the battle standard of the absent Charles, the Angevine King of Naples. The Florentines and their allies had 10,000 undisciplined armed rabble on foot, including light-armed infantry, and crossbowmen, and unmounted lancers, but 1,600 knights and 600 mounted burghrers of Florence,the best armed and mounted which ever sallied out forth from Florence; and 400 mercenaries, together with the following of the Captain M [esser] Amerigo, in the pay of the Florentines; and of
Lucca there were 500horsemen ; and ofPrato 40 horsemen and foot soldiers; and ofPistoia , 60 horse and foot; and ofSiena , 120 horse; and ofVolterra , 40 horse; and ofBologna , their ambassadors with their company; and of Samminiato, and of Sangimignano, and of Colle, men mounted and on foot from each place; and Maghinardo of Susinana, a good and wise captain in war, with his Romagnoli. [http://www.deremilitari.org/RESOURCES/SOURCES/villani2.htm]The forces were equal as far as the large groups of foot-soldiers were concerned; the mounted knights of the Aretine forces only came to 800, but those were "the flower of the Ghibellines of Tuscany, of the March, and of the Duchy, and of
Romagna ; and all were men experienced in arms and in war" (Villani), This Arentine force was quickly assembled and came out as word spread that the Guelfs were ravaging the places of Conte Guido Novello, who waspodestà of Arezzo and, worse, threatening the fortified place called Bibbiena Civitella.The scuttlebutt reported by Villani was that a plot had been intercepted at Arezzo, by which the Bishop agreed to give over to the Florentines Bibbiena Civitella, and all the villages of his see, in return for a life annuity of 5,000 golden florins a year, guaranteed by the bank of the
Cerchi . The plot was uncovered by his nephew Guglielmo de' Pazzi, and they hustled the bishop onto his horse and brought him to the battlefield, where they left him dead among the slain of the battle and its aftermath: Guglielmino de' Pazzi inValdarno and Buonconte, the son ofGuido I da Montefeltro . Ploughing the Campaldino plain used to turn up human remains and bones as recently as eighty years ago [http://www.parchiletterari.com/en_dante.php] . According to Villani,Corso Donati , podestà of Pistoia. though under orders to stand ready in reserve by his personal heroics, shouting “If we lose, I will die in the battle with my fellow citizens; and if we conquer, let him that will, come to us at Pistoia to exact the penalty” charged the Aretine flank and helped break up the lines and win the day for the Guelfs.The battle of Campaldino secured the Guelfs in Florence, though internecine fighting among the Whites and the Blacks among the Florentine Guelfs resulted in upsets for city order, and the exile of many, including Dante, a member of the Whites, the faction more opposed to papal power.
External links
* [http://www.fortezze.it/battaglia_campaldino_it.html Castelle e fortezze:Campaldino] (in Italian)
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