The Campaldino Campaign

Jordan M. Poss Hist 870—Medieval and Renaissance Florence

Dr. Thomas Kuehn 8 December 2009

The Campaldino Campaign

by Jordan M. Poss

On June 2, 1289, the Florentine army marched to war. Bells pealed across the city as the

nearly twelve-thousand man force broke camp, formed up on the Roman road, and

marched up the course of the Arno. At Pontassieve, still within earshot of the ringing church

bells, the columns of infantry and cavalry made for the hills of the Pratomagno. Their route

would take them from the low, well-watered plains of the Arno river valley up steep slopes

and inadequate roads to the Consuma Pass and from there into hostile territory—the

Casentino, the valley of the upper Arno. The objective was Arezzo. The march through the

hills would place them upstream of the city.1

At the army’s head rode Amerigo of Narbonne, whom the French monarch, Charles

V, had left behind with his banners, a number of picked knights, and cash—his blessing on

the expedition. With Amerigo rode “six distinguished citizens” of Florence,2 selected to help

Amerigo command the army, and Amerigo’s lieutenant, “an old knight.”3 Bearing Charles’s

colors and followed closely by the banner of the Commune of Florence rode Gherardo

Ventraia de’ Tornaquinci and the finest of Florence’s cavalry. They would form the van of

the army in the coming battle against the Aretines, and though they did not know it at the

time, their campaign would end decades of strife between the two cities.

The campaign that culminated in the Battle of Campaldino had its roots in the 1 For a good description of the route through which the Florentine army marched, see the article by Oerter, who walked the route on foot; Herbert L. Oerter, “Campaldino, 1289,” Speculum XXXIII (1968): 437-40, 2 Leonardo Bruni, History of the Florentine People, Volume I, Books I-IV, translated by James Hankins, Ed. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard UP, 2001), 333. 3 Dino Compagni, Dino Compagni’s Chronicle of Florence, translated by Daniel E. Bornstein (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986), 10.

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lengthy struggle between the Guelf and Ghibelline factions. Originating in a conflict

between imperial and papal power, the division between Guelf and Ghibelline had long

since lost its meaning. Florence had ridden out political upheaval due to the conflict before.

In 1260, the Guelfs and Ghibellines had fought the Battle of Montaperti, resulting in disaster

for Florentine Guelfs, who were expelled from the city. By the time of the campaign against

Arezzo, the Guelfs had regained control of the city, expelled the Ghibellines in turn, and

were on the brink of hegemony over the surrounding territory. Pisa and Arezzo were the

city’s closest remaining enemies. It was against the Aretines—or, the Florentines quickly

corrected themselves, the Ghibellines—that all their energies were directed.4

The expulsion of Guelfs from Arezzo and small-scale raids on Florentine territory

provided the pretenses for invasion. In 1288, the year previous, Florentine Guelfs had

convinced the Guelf party of Arezzo, which “at that time . . . was governed by the Guelfs

and Ghibellines in equal portions,” to seize power to solidify Guelf control. The Ghibellines

caught wind of the plot, which clearly violated a “firm peace” that had until then kept

hostilities within the city at bay, and expelled the Guelfs. Florence had been asked to

arbitrate a previous dispute between Siena and Bishop Guglielmo delgli Ubertini, de facto

leader of Arezzo and a man “better versed in the duties of war than those of the church.”

The negotiations had engendered further ill feeling when Florence favored its Guelf ally

Siena in the dealing.5

The army must have made a dashing sight as it passed through Pontassieve on its 4 It is worth noting that the Florentines were careful not to describe their opponents as “Aretines” but “Ghibellines,” since a large number of Guelf Aretine exiles living in Florence had fought in the Florentine army at Campaldino. Bruni, 345. Though neither army was composed solely of Florentine or Aretine citizens (see p. 10 below), for the purposes of this paper the author refers to the two sides as the Florentine (Guelf) and Aretine (Ghibelline) armies. 5 Compagni, 9-10.

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way into the hills. The banners at the head of the column were by no means the only show

of pageantry. Bright heraldic skirts draped many horses from head to hoof, and beyond the

gaudy colors were the sparkle of chain mail, helmets, swords and spearheads. Behind the

files of horsemen came row on row of infantry, armed with a forest of steel-headed pikes or

poleaxes some six to eight feet in length.

Somewhere in the column, probably near the end, came the baggage train. It would

be the most difficult part of the army to push up and over the mountains into the enemy’s

rear. “One is frequently tempted to wonder,” one historian has imagined of the army

struggling through the hills, “why it is necessary to go through all this agony.”6 Florentines

in the rank and file probably wondered with considerable bitterness, since the route through

the mountains was the more difficult of two available.

During the planning stages of the campaign, Florentine leaders had proposed two

routes to Arezzo, one generally northerly in direction, the other southerly. The issue, which

was important for supply and logistics, had sharply divided opinion among the planners.

Eventually, the army’s leadership convened a meeting in the Church of San Giovanni to

resolve the issue and choose a route.7

The basic geographical fact of the campaign was the Arno. Both Florence and Arezzo

sit on the river, which, moving upstream from Florence, fishhooks into the Apennines to its

source at Monte Falterona. Situated inside the fishhook and creating an oval bulge between

the two cities is the Pratomagno, a mountain region impenetrable to any large organized

force. On either side of the Pratomagno lie the rolling plains of the Casentino and the

6 Oerter, 440. 7 Compagni, 11.

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Chianti, the valleys of the upper and lower Arno, respectively. With the Pratomagno

directly between Florence and Arezzo, one of two circuitous routes had to be chosen.

The northerly route followed a seasonal trail into the Pratomagno to the Consuma

Pass roughly six miles east of Pontassieve. The road was narrow, being little more than a

cart path, with many switchbacks and turns.8 Some probably doubted its ability to

accommodate nearly twelve thousand men, not to mention horses, pack animals, and

baggage. The road continued on the Casentino side of the pass and crossed the eastern hook

of the Arno near the Ghibelline fortress Castel San Niccolo, before joining better roads at

another Ghibelline fortress, Bibbiena. From there it was a straightforward march of about

fifteen miles south to Arezzo. The southerly route ran through the Chianti. The strada

maestra, a Roman highway, follows the Arno from Florence through Pontassieve, Rignano,

to Incisa, where it crosses the river, through the Guelf city of Figline and the Ghibelline

stronghold of Montevarchi before leaving the river behind and running straight east to

Arezzo.

Both routes had clear geographical and strategic problems, duly noted by the

advocates or detractors of each route. Opponents to the mountain route viewed the Roman

road along the Arno as a more direct and less dangerous path. They worried that the trail

through the mountains was too narrow, too easy to prepare for ambush, and simply too

difficult for a heavily-armed force to pass through in good time. Furthermore, some of the

wealthier men of Florence feared for their countryside villas, which would be open to attack

if the army were to deploy to the other side of the Pratomagno.9

8 The modern highway SR70, which connects Pontassieve and Poppi, appears to follow this track closely. 9 Compagni, 11.

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Those proposing the Casentino route had personal reasons as well. Dino Compagni

states that two men, Sasso da Murli and “a wise old man” named Orlando da Chiusi, were

“great castellans who feared for their weak castles” and therefore advocated the route

through the mountains as a way of looking after their property, which stood in the Aretine

countryside. A number of Aretine Guelfs who had joined up with their Florentine party

members advocated the mountain route as well. Compagni, who as prior was present at the

meeting, leaves the specific arguments out, stating that “others [who] favored the route

through the Casentino [said] that that was the better way and [put] forward many

reasons.”10

Looking at a map of the proposed routes, it is not difficult to come up with some of

10 Compagni, 11.

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those reasons.11 Though the Chianti had better roads and avoided the difficult terrain of the

Pratomagno, the road crossed and recrossed the Arno and passed within striking distance of

several Ghibelline-held fortresses. Perhaps the largest was at Montevarchi, which lies

roughly the same distance to the east of Arezzo as Bibbiena to the north. Furthermore, the

Roman road crosses not only the Arno but a number of tributaries, such as the Ambro

upstream of Montevarchi, and two smaller courses within three miles of Arezzo. An army

striking at Arezzo across such terrain might have found itself in a situation not unlike the

Army of the Potomac in 1862, confronted with multiple river crossings and a foe determined

to defend each.12 The Chianti route, it should be noted, was also the obvious route.

Marching through the mountains would grant Florence the benefits of surprise—albeit

briefly—and a downhill fight, marching with the flow of the Arno toward Arezzo.

The decision came down to a secret ballot. The route through the Consuma Pass

and the Casentino won out. It proved to be the right decision for, “even though this route

was the more doubtful and dangerous one, it turned out for the best.”13

Nevertheless, leaders of the communal army had its banners posted at Ripoli, on the

southern side of the Arno, while the army mustered. Florentine leaders apparently hoped to

give the impression that the army was preparing to march into the Chianti, thereby making

more time for the army to muster and enter the Casentino unopposed.14 Whether the

Aretines arrived at this conclusion or not—and it seems that, if fooled, they did not remain

so for long—the army was ready at the beginning of June and marched into the Pratomagno

11 Cf. the map from Oerter, 438, above. 12 John Keegan examines this problem in The American Civil War: A Military History (New York: Knopf, 2009), 142-3. 13 Compagni, 11. 14 Bruni, 333.

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on the 2nd.

The march was uneventful, but a full nine days passed between the army’s departure

from Florence and the battle at Campaldino, just over twenty-one miles away. This oddity

has led Oerter, in his study of the battle, to conclude that the army stopped to raze Aretine-

allied villages in the Pratomagno. “There is no documentary evidence to support” this

contention, he freely admits, “but there is a strong probability that this is precisely what

happened.”15

The problem with Oerter’s argument is precisely the documentary evidence.

Oerter’s defense is essentially an argument from silence (which can, of course, be

contradicted by an argument from silence). Oerter neglects to address the account of

Leonardo Bruni who, though writing at a greater remove than Villani or Compagni, was

working from now-lost sources. Bruni, like Compagni and Villani before him, records

nothing of the journey through the Consuma Pass. He does, however, record that, once

they had reached Poppi, stronghold of Count Guido Novello, the Florentine army “pitched

camp under his very walls and devastated as much of the region as they could.” During the

interim, the Aretines got word of the destruction from refugees and “set out immediately

with their entire army, both horse and foot.”16 The Florentine army, then, spent its nine

days in the field attempting to draw the Aretine army into ground of its choosing. The ploy

worked.

The armies met at Campaldino, an open field on the banks of the Arno between

Poppi and Bibbiena. The battle was apparently a set-piece battle, arranged by agreement

15 Oerter, 441. 16 Bruni, 332-5.

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beforehand and initiated the day after the formal arrangement.17

The Aretines were supremely confident. They had hustled upriver to defend the

approach to Arezzo and were eager for the fight. Villani describes them going into battle

without fear because “they despised [the Florentines], saying that they adorned themselves

like women, and combed their tresses; and they derided them and held them for nought.”

Such pride was not necessarily misplaced. Their army represented “the flower of the

Ghibellines of Tuscany, of the March, and of the Duchy, and of Romagna,” and “many wise

captains of war were among them . . . and all were men experienced in arms and in war.”18

The Florentine army’s leader, Amerigo, was by contrast “young and fine looking but not

well tested in arms.” He was apparently to rely heavily on the advice of his older lieutenant,

whom Villani names as Guillaume Bernard de Durfort. The Aretines may also have held an

advantage in moral will, since Compagni records that some Florentines of the popolani found

the expedition “unjust.”19

Though undoubtedly a good army, the Aretines should have reassessed their

situation. The Florentines held better ground—upstream and therefore uphill of the

Aretines—and outnumbered the Aretines by a healthy margin. The Florentines had fielded

10,000 infantry, the Aretines 8,000, and the 1,300-1,600 Florentine cavalry outnumbered the

Aretines’ two-to-one.20

Despite the difference in size, the two armies were probably identical in composition

17 Oerter, 435. It is worth noting that, if the customary night of rest before such a battle were in fact taken, this shaves another day off the nine mysterious days spent in the field by the Florentine army. 18 Villani, 287. 19 Compagni, 10. Compagni describes these popolani as such against “the powerful Florentine Guelfs,” so while this class may not have contributed knights to the army, some quite probably were serving in the infantry. It must, however, remain undogmatic speculation. 20 The numbers come from Compagni, 12, and Villani, 286-7.

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and quality of troops. The weapons and armor of the mounted knights were little different

from those carried into the fray by knights of the Crusades, the Norman Invasion, or even

the campaigns of Charlemagne. They wore a variety of helmets, including the “great helm,”

a relatively new design that enclosed the entire head in a bucket-like shape with eye-slits and

holes to ease—if only slightly—the breathing of the man encased. They carried swords and

lances and triangular shields but armored their horses only in gaudy skirts, probably painted

or embroidered, like the tunics worn over the knights’ armor, with heraldic devices. Most

knights wore coats of chain mail and a variety of defenses for the legs, including mail

leggings and strips of steel.21 Though the technology and metallurgical sophistication to

forge plate armor had been available for over a century, the need for plate in response to

battlefield innovations by infantry and archers was still in the future, if only a generation

away.22 As of Campaldino, the armored knight on horseback still enjoyed command of the

medieval battlefield.

The infantry, the most plentiful soldiers on both sides, were probably lightly

armored with mail, helmets, or heavily padded coats. Most carried a dagger and a variety of

pike or poleaxe that bore close resemblance to the halberd of the Renaissance. The poleaxe

was between six and eight feet long and tipped with a long, axe-like blade. On the blade’s

blunt side was a spike, with which the infantryman could impale an opponent. It was

exceptionally useful for hooking cavalrymen and dragging them from the saddle. With

enough force, the axe-blade could even cut a man in half. These infantrymen fought en

masse, with their pikes either held or planted in the ground facing the enemy to form a

21 Oerter, 435; David Nicolle, Italian Medieval Armies 1000-1300 (Oxford: Osprey, 2002), plates F and G. 22 Andrew Ayton, “Arms, Armour, and Horses,” in Medieval Warfare: A History, Maurice Keen, Ed. (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1999), 202; cf. John Keegan, A History of Warfare (New York: Vintage, 1993), 309-10.

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hedge of sharpened steel.23

Lost somewhere in the mix were an unknown number of crossbowmen. In this

respect the Florentine and Aretine armies wholly differed—the Aretines apparently fielded

few archers of any kind during the battle. Archers, crossbowmen especially, since it took

virtually no skill and little training to use a crossbow, were the social dregs of the medieval

combat force. It is therefore unsurprising that the chroniclers make little note of them. Dino

Compagni mentions once that “arrows rained down,” and Giovanni Villani mentions the

crossbowmen in his description of the pre-battle dispositions, but makes no further mention

of them.24

Another mysterious contingent of both armies were mercenary troops. Compagni

recorded that the Florentines had, in early 1289, hired four hundred horsemen under a

captain named Baldovino di Soppino, but before he could move his troops to Florence the

pro-Ghibelline Pope had “detained him.”25 Despite the pope’s frustration of Florence’s first

attempt to hire mercenaries, four hundred mercenary cavalry were present in the ranks at

Campaldino.26 Whether Florence had sought elsewhere after the Pope’s interference or had

somehow managed to secure Baldovino’s services despite it is unknown. Though

mercenaries would play an increasingly important role in the Florentine commune’s war-

making—the commune eventually hired all-mercenary armies, now infamous thanks to

Machiavelli—they formed a much smaller contingent of the commune’s army than the

citizens.

23 Oerter, 434-5; cf. Nicolle, plate F, and the description on p. 46. 24 Compagni, 12; Villani, 288. 25 Compagni, 10. 26 Villani, 286.

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Florence’s army contained not only citizens and mercenaries, but large groups of

allies and exiled Guelf citizens of Arezzo, bent on forcing their way back into their

hometown. Though Compagni and Villani give different numbers, both name Lucca,

Pistoia, and Bologna as major contributors of cavalry and infantry.27 Villani also names

Prato, Volterra, Samminiato, Sangimignano, and Colle as contributors of smaller

contingents. The Aretines, too, were by no means monolithic, bring with their army of

citizens “the flower of the Ghibellines of Tuscany, of the March, and of the Duchy, and of

Romagna.”28

The two sides formed their armies on the plain. The Florentines formed on the

broad western end of the field, which sloped gently uphill toward them. The Aretines

arrayed their troops in a bottleneck at the eastern end. They would have to charge uphill

across a series of small streams flowing across the battlefield to meet their enemy. They

were probably counting on the Florentines to meet them halfway.

The Florentines would grant them no such boon. Prior to the battle, a knight by the

name of Barone de’ Mangiadori of San Miniato had come forward with a piece of tactical

advice. Previous wars, he said, had been quickly won with little bloodshed. Times had

changed. “Now . . . wars are won by standing firm. Because of this, I advise you to be strong

and let them attack.” Because the Baron was “a knight bold and expert in deeds of arms,” the

army adopted the idea in short order.29 As with the decision to follow the route into the

Casentino, it was the right decision.

27 Ibid; Compagni, 12. 28 Villani, 286. 29 Compagni, 12. Compagni’s description of the reception of this idea is delightfully terse: “And this they prepared to do.”

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Both sides deployed their cavalry in the center of their lines, with massive formations

of infantry on either side to protect the cavalry’s flanks. The center of the line in medieval

combat was the place of high honor, akin to the extreme right of the ancient Greek phalanx.

On the Florentine side, the cavalry formed around the banners of the Commune and

Charles V, which were guarded by their own special contingent of cavalry. The Florentine

army also had formations of crossbowmen, which it probably deployed forward of the

cavalry at the beginning of the battle. Both sides held some cavalry in reserve. The

Florentine reserves numbered two-hundred knights of Lucca and Pistoia and were

commanded by Corso Donati, a Florentine and podestà of Pistoia at the time. The Aretine

reserves numbered 150 horse and were commanded by Count Guido Novello. The

reserves—and their commanders—of both sides would play a decisive role in the coming

battle.

Ahead of the main lines, the Florentines deployed a 150-man group of “forefighters”

selected to meet the enemy first.30 These men, “the best of the host,” were drawn a few

from each district of Florence’s contado. The duty was dangerous. Vieri de’ Cerchi, one of

the captains obliged to pick men from his sesto, refused to coerce the unwilling into joining.

Despite a crippling affliction in one leg, he chose himself for the duty, along with “his sons

and nephews.” Cerchi was much admired for this, and by example shamed numerous others

into volunteering.31 Among them was a young Dante Alighieri, who had just celebrated his

24th birthday.32

30 Bruni, 337. 31 Villani, 288. 32 Edward Peters, “The Shadowy, Violent Perimeter: Dante Enters Florentine Political Life,” Dante Studies, with the Annual Report of the Dante Society, No. 113 (1995), 74. We have no more specific date for Dante’s birth

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Dante, Vieri de’ Cerchi, and their comrades may have waited some time to meet the

Aretines. Waiting was a common preliminary in medieval battles, with each side waiting for

the other to “make the move” and sometimes trying to provoke the first move—at

Agincourt, Henry V’s army, after waiting most of the morning for a French attack, quite

literally pulled up stakes and marched to within bowshot, forcing an attack.33

When the Aretines finally advanced, they marched into a widening front. The

Florentine end of the field was broader than the Aretine, and so the tightly-packed Aretine

cavalry and infantry had to fan out as they charged or be flanked. The Aretine advance

broadened and slowed as it moved forward, like water poured onto a kitchen floor—as the

puddle broadens and slows, it also grows shallower. By the time the Aretines made contact

with their enemies, the sledgehammer power of the cavalry at their center had spread and

weakened.34

But the Aretines had first to cross the field. A number of small streams cross

Campaldino, flowing down from the hills into the Arno. Each of this presented a distracting

obstacle to the army, especially the cavalry, which valued horses with unbroken legs.

The Aretine cavalry then entered crossbow range. The crossbowmen, though of

common birth, wreaked havoc on their blue-blooded attackers. Once the cavalry were

within range, the archers loosed one bolt apiece and fell back behind the infantry’s thicket of

pikes. The crossbow’s bolt could penetrate any armor then available, and anything or

anyone in the way of the archers’ volley could count on terrible injury or death. Firing from than that he was born under the sign of Gemini in 1265. Most scholars are content with a date in the last few days of May or the first few of June. 33 John Keegan, The Face of Battle (New York: Penguin, 1976), 88-90. 34 Oerter, 446. This “fanning” phenomena bears some comparison with the rightward “drift” of Greek phalangites, noted by Thucydides. Cf. Victor Davis Hanson, The Western Way of War (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 28.

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a position in front of the infantry at the charging cavalry, it is probable that the crossbows

did greatest damage to the Aretine flanks, thinning out an already weak force.35

The crossbowmen fell back and cavalry met cavalry. Despite the obstacles, the uphill

rush, and the dissipation of much of the attack’s force, the Aretines still hit the Florentines

hard. The shock was so violent that many Florentines were thrown from their horses, and

“the rest turned tail.” These fell back to the main body of cavalry, which met the Aretines

and put up a more stiff resistance. Still the Florentines were driven back. The Florentine

infantry swept inward to surround the Aretine cavalry. Infantry met infantry and the battle

descended into melee.36

Dante Alighieri later remembered that the fear among the Florentines was great, no

doubt because of the shocking blow dealt them by an inferior force and the inescapable fear

of participation in combat.37 To a man in the fray, conditions must have seemed chaotic.

The maelstrom of pushing, shoving infantry and horsemen threw up enormous clouds of

dust. The Florentine archers continued to fire into the body of Aretine troops. Within this

maelstrom of dust, blood, and iron, the infantry on both sides held together, prolonging the

fight. Eventually, the Aretine infantry grew desperate. They drew their daggers and

scrambled through the fight, gutting the Florentines’ horses. Despite all the Florentines’

advantages, they were not winning. Neither side seemed to have a clear advantage.38

It was at this point that the reserve forces came into play. The reserves of both sides

had standing orders—Corso Donati and his Florentine-allied horse were “to stand firm, and

35 Cf. Ayton, 205. Later crossbows had draw strengths of nearly 1,000 lbs. A crossbow with even a fraction of such power could still penetrate any armor available to the Aretines in 1289. 36 Compagni, 12; Bruni, 337; Villani, 289. 37 Bruni, 341; the letter which Bruni quotes is now lost. 38 Compagni, 12; Villani, 289.

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not . . . strike under pain of death.” Count Guido and his 150 Aretine cavalry were to await

an opportunity to attack the Florentine flanks. Both commanders disobeyed orders.39

From his place outside the battle, Corso Donati could make out through the dust

enough to know that the battle was hard fought—and not necessarily going well for

Florence. Turning to the 200 men under his command, he scorned his orders and

announced, “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.” So saying, he set spurs to his horse

and rode into the Aretine flank.40

Donati’s charge threw the Aretines into chaos. They now had a strong force of

knights in their rear. Their cavalry overpowered, the Aretine army lost cohesion and a rout

was not long in coming. 41

From his place with the Aretine reserves, Guido Novello watched. He had been

charged with precisely the task Donati had carried out on his own initiative. Now the battle

was turning against the Aretines, and despite the haze, dust, and confusion, it was obvious

to the Count. Novello and his force fell back to his castle, the “first to flee” according to

Bruni.42

The Aretine army routed. The streams negotiated by the army on their way to attack

probably added to the horror of the retreat, as panicked men and horses now stumbled

through them. The situation bears comparison to an incident at Hastings two centuries

39 Villani, 289. 40 Villani, 289-90. Bruni, 339, repeats the same story but, reflecting prevailing interests in an age of increased civic patriotism—and a growing preoccupation with Greco-Roman rhetoric—adds the following to the beginning of Donati’s speech: “Let us attack the enemy knights, fellow soldiers, before their infantry joins the battle. For my part I shall let neither the orders of my commander nor fear of punishment deter me when my fellow citizens are in danger.” 41 Bruni, 339. 42 Villani, 290; Bruni, 339-41.

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earlier. A drainage ditch at the foot of Senlac Hill that posed little problem to cavalry on its

way to attack tripped up dozens of fleeing knights, causing “scores or hundreds” of deaths

through injury or trampling.43 At Campaldino, those who fell risked death at the hands of

the pursuing—now blood-thirsty—Florentines. The Florentine mercenaries, elated at a

victory after numerous defeats, and the troops recruited from the contado spared no one—

the Aretines “were hunted down and killed.”44 It was probably the noble-born who took

prisoners.

The aftermath can hardly be imagined. With capable soldiers bearing terrible

weapons on both sides, the carnage must have been awful. Adding to the gruesome sight

were the guts of countless Florentine horses, whom the Aretines had deliberately targeted.

Both sides took heavy casualties, the norm for medieval warfare. The Aretines left over

1,700 dead on the field, including Buonconte de Montefeltro, whose body was never

found,45 and the Bishop of Arezzo, Guglielmo degli Ubertini. Casualties were especially high

among the noble familes, including those Ghibellines exiled from Florence—Villani lists

“three of the Ubertini, and one of the Abati, and two of the Griffoni of Fegghine.” Among

the Florentine dead were Amerigo of Narbonne’s loyal lieutenant and a handful of nobles,

but otherwise “no man of renown.”46

Campaldino is usually regarded as the final bloody act that secured Florentine Guelf

43 David Howarth, 1066: The Year of the Conquest (New York: Penguin, 1977), 175-6. The scene is illustrated vividly in the Bayeux Tapestry and gives some idea of the chaos resulting from a cavalry rout. 44 Compagni, 13. 45 Buonconte’s death was immortalized in Dante’s Divine Comedy, in which Dante meets Buonconte’s soul in Purgatory. Dante inquires of him what happened to his body at Campaldino, and Buonconte replies that he staggered from the battle, mortally wounded in the throat, and died on the banks of the Archiano. As he died, he whispered the name of Mary, and was saved in extremis. An angel bore his soul to Purgatory, and the devil sent for his soul, thwarted, conjured a storm and flung Buonconte’s body out to sea. Dante Alighieri, Purgatorio, V, 85-129. 46 Villani, 290.

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hegemony. Though he treats the coming siege of Arezzo briefly, Compagni focuses more on

the misbehavior of two priors at the time and, once the Florentine army returns home “with

little game,” his chronicle never again takes up the subject.47 Villani certainly regarded the

victory at Campaldino was decisive, writing that, when news was received in Florence,

“there was great gladness and rejoicing; and there was good cause, for . . . there was brought

low the arrogance and pride not only of the Aretines, but of the whole Ghibelline party and

of the Empire.”48 But that Florence had decisively neutralized Arezzo as a threat was not

apparent to either the Florentines or the Aretines at the time. In fact, the campaign

continued into July. Only later would Campaldino be looked upon as a decisive victory.

Immediately after the battle, Florence captured Bibbiena with no struggle. The army

then spent a week consolidating its success in the region, bringing nearby castles under

Florentine control, plundering, and simply resting. Meanwhile, the panicked Aretine

survivors had regrouped, calmed down, and returned to Arezzo, which they sealed tight

against the inevitable siege. Later writers bemoaned the delay following Campaldino.

Compagni ignored it. Villani wrote that if “the Florentine host had ridden [immediately]

upon Arezzo, without doubt they would have taken the city.” Bruni was more blunt: “This

delay was the reason they failed to bring the city under their control. . . . [T]he delay

strengthened [the Aretines’] spirits and lessened their fear.”49 At last, on the eighth day after

Campaldino, the Florentine army, still flush with victory, marched on Arezzo.

The siege of Arezzo was a typically ugly medieval siege, compounded by poor

leadership and the resistance of a newly determined enemy. The city’s defenses were

47 Compagni, 13. 48 Villani, 291. 49 Bruni, 343; Villani, 291.

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incomplete at the time. A large section was defended only by a wooden palisade and moat.

The Florentines focused their attention on this wall. They constructed siege towers and

catapults, probably improvising from local materials. The Florentines taunted their enemy

by holding horse races in view of the city walls and catapulting “asses with mitres on their

heads, in contempt and reproach of their bishop.” Hopes were high at the beginning, so

high, in fact, that two priors traveled from Florence as “inspectors” and apparently took

control of the siege. This, in Bruni’s words, was “an unprecedented step.”50

It was also unwise. The priors exacerbated an already tense situation by

“harangu[ing] the soldiers to the point of raging fury, so that they attacked day after day,

trying to fill the moat and cut through the earthwork.”51 Florentine morale suffered. The

priors, who are not named in any source, drove the besieging army to the point of

exhaustion. Amerigo of Narbonne showed his inexperience as he failed to rein in the

warmongering priors.52 The army had not only to worry about maintaining the siege,

constructing siege engines, and constant digging to breach Arezzo’s earthworks, they were

also engaged in laying waste to the area around the city and forcing Aretine fortresses into

submission. It was too much. Florentine success broke on the walls of Arezzo.

The fatal blow came in the middle of the night, twenty days into the siege. The

weather must have been heavily cloudy, perhaps stormy—Bruni also describes heavy

wind—since the moon was only just beginning to wane and could not have been less than a

50 Villani, 291-2; Bruni, 345. The Bishop, only recently killed at Campaldino, had suffered damage to his reputation prior to the battle, when it was discovered by the Aretines that he was attempting to transfer his property to Florence in exchange for a generous yearly endowment. He changed his mind before the campaign and urged Arezzo not to make peace with Florence. Cf. Compagni, 10-11. 51 Bruni, 345. 52 It is worth noting that the Florentine army only began to struggle militarily once Amerigo’s lieutenant had been killed in battle.

19

half moon.53 Having by now completely regained their previous confidence, if not their

numbers, the Aretines sallied from the city walls and set fire to the Florentines’ siege

equipment, severely damaging or destroying all of it. The Florentine army “despair[ed] of

the siege, and they marched their troops back to Florence after devasting everything around

the city.” They left behind only ash and the handful of troops necessary to garrison their

new fortresses.54

The Campaldino campaign may have been a qualified success, but it was

nevertheless a success. Florence welcomed the army with a lavish parade organized at the

city’s expense. Amerigo of Narbonne and other prominent leaders entered the city under a

canopy of gold cloth held aloft by pike-wielding knights, and the victorious army of the

commune bore Bishop Guglielmo’s miter, sword and shield into the city as trophies. Soon,

the anticlimactic siege of Arezzo would be forgotten, and Campaldino take its place as the

decisive conflict in the long struggle between Florence and Arezzo.

While the Battle of Campaldino was a decisive battle in that it settled the strife

between Florence and Arezzo for good, that was not immediately apparent to either

participant. Florence sent another army against Arezzo before the year was out, and another

the following year. The Florentines still sought a definitive decision on the issue, and since

Arezzo could no longer field an army, they settled for laying waste the Aretines’ crops. Even

Guido Novello, already notorious as a coward at Campaldino, continued as a threat, the

Florentines attacking his castles on principle in 1290. The Aretine war more or less petered

out into a series of small-scale raids and devastations over the two years following

53 Moon Calendar, http://www.paulcarlisle.net/mooncalendar/. 54 Bruni, 343-5.

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Campaldino. Campaldino broke Arezzo’s back, and Arezzo would never again pose a threat

to Florence, but that is evident only in hindsight. Only later, when it was clear that the

Ghibelline threat from Arezzo was no more, did Campaldino emerge as the reason.55

55 Bruni, 347, 353. Bruni (359) shockingly alludes to “a happy ending . . . brought to the Aretine war, as we have related,” when no such definitive ending appears in his History.

21

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