History of Rome - 14th and 15th Centuries

14th and 15th Centuries

The fourteenth century, with the absence of the popes during the Avignon Papacy, was a century of neglect and misery for the city of Rome, which dropped to its lowest level of population. With the return of the papacy to Rome repeatedly postponed because of the bad conditions of the city and the lack of control and security, it was first necessary to strengthen the political and doctrinal aspects of the pontiff. When in 1377 Gregory XI was in fact returned to Rome, he found a city in anarchy because of the struggles between the nobility and the popular faction, and in which his power was now more formal than real. There followed four decades of instability, characterised by the local power struggle between the commune and the papacy, and internationally by the great Western Schism, at the end of which was elected Pope, Martin V. He restored order, laying the foundations of its rebirth.

In 1433 the Duke of Milan, Filippo Maria Visconti signed a peace treaty with Florence and Venice. He then sent the condottieri Niccolò Fortebraccio and Francesco Sforza to harass the Papal States, in vengeance for Eugene IV's support to the two former republics. Fortebraccio, supported by the Colonna, occupied Tivoli in October 1433 and ravaged Rome's countryside. Despite the concessions made by Eugene to the Visconti, the Milanese soldiers did not stop their destruction. This led the Romans, on May 29, 1434 to institute a Republican government under the Banderesi. Eugene left the city a few days later, during the night of June 4.

However, the Banderari proved incapable of governing the city, and their inadequacies and violence soon deprived them of popular support. The city was therefore returned to Eugene by the army of Giovanni Vitelleschi on October 26, 1434. After the death in mysterious circumstances of Vitelleschi, the city came under the control of Ludovico Scarampo, Patriarch of Aquileia. Eugene returned to Rome on 28 September 1443.