A Staunch Ghibelline
With Vicenza secured, Cangrande was able to involve himself in territories to the west of Verona. With the aid of Rinaldo "Passerino" Bonacolsi, ruler of Mantua, he had by September 1316 helped secure Ghibelline supremacy in Western Lombardy. He then turned his attention back to his personal goal of conquering the Trevisan Mark, launching an unsuccessful attack on Treviso in November 1316.
On 16 March 1316, Cangrande had officially recognised Frederick I of Austria as Holy Roman Emperor, receiving from him confirmation of the Imperial Vicariates of Verona and Vicenza and incurring the wrath of Pope John XXII, who recognised neither Frederick nor his rival, Louis IV of Bavaria, as Emperor. Cangrande ignored the Pope's threats of excommunication and re-emphasised his Ghibelline credentials by attacking the Guelphs of Brescia in concert with the feared Tuscan warlord Uguccione della Faggiuola. He was about to lay siege to the city in May 1317 when he heard that Vicenza was about to be betrayed to a group of exiles backed by Paduan troops under the Guelph nobleman Count Vinciguerra di San Bonifacio, whose family had long ago been exiled from Verona by Cangrande's uncle Mastino I della Scala.
Read more about this topic: Cangrande I Della Scala