The War
Florence formed an alliance with Milan in July 1375, immediately prior to the outbreak of the war, and the prosecution of the war was entirely delegated to an eight-member committee appointed by the Signoria of Florence: the otto della guerra.
Florence incited a revolt in the Papal States in 1375. Florentine agents were sent to more than forty cities in the papal states—including Bologna, Perugia, Orvieto, and Viterbo—to foment rebellion, many of which had only been re-submitted to papal authority by the efforts of Cardinal Gil Álvarez Carrillo de Albornoz. Humanist Chancellor of Florence Coluccio Salutati disseminated public letters urging the cities to rebel against the "tyrannical" and "corrupt" papal rule, instead urging a return to all'antica Republicanism.
Pope Gregory XI excommunicated all members of the government of Florence and placed the city under interdict on March 31, 1376, banning religious services in Florence and legalizing the arrest and enslavement of Florentines and the confiscation of their property throughout Europe. Initially, rather than attempting to disobey the interdict, Florentines organized extra-ecclesiastical processions (including flagellants) and confraternities, including the re-emergence of groups such as the Fraticelli, who had previously been deemed heretical. The edifice of the Florentine inquisition was destroyed, and the Signoria rolled back legal restrictions on usury and other practices frowned on by the (now defunct) ecclesiastical courts.
However, on October 1377, the government of Florence forced the clergy to resume religious services causing Angelo Ricasoli, Bishop of Florence, and Neri Corsini, Bishop of Fiesole, to flee Florentine territory. The heavy fines and confiscations issued by the Signoria on prelates who left their posts, the "most extensive liquidation of an ecclesiastical patrimony attempted anywhere in Europe before the Reformation," may have been motivated to pay for the increasingly expensive conflict. The total cost of the war for Florence would reach approximately 2.5 million florins.
As a result of Gregory XI's economic sanctions, merchants of the Florentine "diaspora" were hurt economically throughout Europe, particularly the Alberti bankers in Avignon, although the interdict was ignored by many, including Charles V of France.
Hawkwood honored his agreement with the Florentines not to make war in Tuscany, limiting himself to putting down the various rebellions within the papal states; in 1377 Hawkwood abandoned Gregory XI entirely and joined the anti-papal coalition. Gregory XI's other condottieri also limited their acitivities to Romagna, notably sacking Cesena in February 1377. In the spring of 1377, papal mercenaries recaptured Bologna, which up until that point had been a key Florentine ally.
In 1377, Cardinal Robert of Geneva (future Avignon Pope Clement VII) led the army of Gregory XI in an attempt to quell the revolt, and Gregory XI himself returned to Italy to secure his Roman possessions, de facto ending the Avignon Papacy. Gregory XI arrived in Rome in January 1378, after a difficult journey (including shipwreck), and died there in March 1378.
Read more about this topic: War Of The Eight Saints
Famous quotes containing the word war:
“We had won. Pimps got out of their polished cars and walked the streets of San Francisco only a little uneasy at the unusual exercise. Gamblers, ignoring their sensitive fingers, shook hands with shoeshine boys.... Beauticians spoke to the shipyard workers, who in turn spoke to the easy ladies.... I thought if war did not include killing, I’d like to see one every year. Something like a festival.”
—Maya Angelou (b. 1928)
“[John] Brough’s majority is “glorious to behold.” It is worth a big victory in the field. It is decisive as to the disposition of the people to prosecute the war to the end. My regiment and brigade were both unanimous for Brough [the Union party candidate for governor of Ohio].”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)