Commune of Ravenna

Who rules

Name

Not pinned (the city's leading man is Pietro Traversari)

Title

Podestà of Ravenna for 1199

Since

not pinned

Confidence

low

The Enciclopedia Dantesca gives Pietro Traversari as podestà of Ravenna in 1181-82, 1188-1190, 1194, 1196, 1202, 1213, 1216 and 1219-1220; the English Wikipedia list of Traversari podestà adds 1200 without naming the man. The officer for 1199, who is in office on the morning of 1 January 1200, is not pinned. The archbishop, Guglielmo di Cabriano (since 11 February 1191), keeps a high lordship over the city (Church map record).

Overlord

The emperor in law, through the archbishop's old comital rights; Henry VI had made Markward of Annweiler duke of Ravenna and the Romagna (1195), but the Germans are gone. Innocent III claims the exarchate for the Roman Church; the archbishop and the city resist the claim (campaign notes, Part 5).

What the realm holds

• Ravenna: the walled city, with Classe and the port canals toward the sea and the pinewoods
• The marshes and fisheries of the coast from the Po di Primaro to the Savio
• Cervia and its salt pans, under the archbishop (control contested by Forlì; not pinned)
• The archbishop's castle of Argenta on the Primaro (Church map record)
• The massa of Sant'Ilario at Lugo, returned to the archbishop's church by a papal legate in 1198 after the counts of Cunio had seized it in 1161
• Traversara, the Traversari's home on the Lamone, and Traversari estates in the Romagna

How it was acquired

A commune from the early twelfth century (attested about 1106), formed by the archbishop's and monasteries' noble tenants; its podestà was at first named by the archbishop, and a Traversari first held the office in 1181.

Allies and rivals

Allies: the Este party at Ferrara (through Pietro Traversari); Rimini and Ancona in the league of 1198. Rivals: Forlì over Cervia's salt; Faenza (which beat the Ravennati with the imperial legate in 1185); Ferrara's Torelli party over Argenta; the Guidi counts, with whom the Traversari fought over Dovadola and castles near Faenza in the 1190s; the counts of Cunio and of Bagnacavallo, enemies of the Traversari. Venice watches the salt and the Po.

The Italian Wikipedia history of Ravenna adds that the Romagna cities formed a league on 2 February 1198 which, with Innocent III's help, drove Markward out, leaving him only Cesena and Forlì [thin: members and terms not given].

The realm that morning

The commune and the archbishop share the city; the Traversari lead the commune. The archbishop's outlying castles and salt are his, not the commune's, but they lie in the city's sphere and are drawn in its colour. The pope's claim to the Romagna is unenforced.

Wealth

Salt of Cervia; rents of the church estates that the nobles administer; fisheries of the lagoons; the port and the canal toward the Po (the Po di Primaro and the navigable channel made after the Ficarolo breach of 1152).

Military

The militia of the city and the retinues of the noble houses; the archbishop's castellans. Record: beaten by Faenza in 1185 while serving with the imperial legate. No figures in the sources read.

Threats

• Ferrara over Argenta
• Forlì over Cervia
• Feuds between the Traversari and the Dusdei
• The pope's claim to the exarchate and the archbishop's own rights

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

In 1200

1. Start of the 1200 term (date not pinned)A Traversari, probably Pietro, is podestà of Ravenna in 1200 according to the English Wikipedia list.Depends on: The Traversari keeping their hold on the councils. Stopped by: A coup by the Dusdei or the archbishop.
2. 1200 (month not pinned)The Ferrarese, with Veronese and Modenese troops, sack and burn Argenta, the archbishop's castle on the Primaro.Depends on: Salinguerra Torelli leading Verona's host for Ferrara. Stopped by: A settlement over the Primaro.

Later, on the likely course

1. 1201Archbishop Guglielmo dies; the see stays vacant until Alberto Oselletti (10 March 1202), who begins a new castle at Lugo in 1202.Depends on: Natural death. Stopped by: Nothing likely.
2. 1201-1202Agreements end the feud at Bertinoro and pass the old rights of Count Cavalcaconte to the archbishop of Ravenna.Depends on: The Bertinoro factions agreeing. Stopped by: The Mainardi or an emperor refusing.

Places of note

• Traversara: The Traversari's ancestral castle on the left bank of the Lamone, about 4.5 km east of Bagnacavallo (coordinates approximate)
• Cervia: Salt pans of the archbishop, coveted by Forlì

Where the sources disagree

• The campaign notes name Ravenna's archbishop only as Guglielmo [thin]; the Church map record pins him as Guglielmo di Cabriano, archbishop from 11 February 1191 until 1201.
• Pietro Traversari's podestà years differ: the Enciclopedia Dantesca has 1196 and 1202 but not 1200; the English Wikipedia's list of Traversari podestà includes 1200.
• campaign notes Part 5 say the archbishop and the towns of the Romagna resist the papal claim [thin]. The archbishop's resistance is reported (Gregorovius, via the Papal State record), but in 1198 Ravenna and Rimini were drawn into Ancona's pro-papal league against Markward (31 August 1198), a papal legate restored the Lugo and San Paolo estates to Ravenna's church (1198), and papal troops overcame Forlì's resistance (1198). The towns welcomed the pope against the Germans but accepted no papal government: nothing shows a papal rector or garrison in the Romagna on 1 January 1200.
• The Church map record (Ravenna) says the archbishop's struggle for Argenta with the Este begins around 1200; the attack of 1200 was in fact led by the commune of Ferrara under Salinguerra Torelli, the Este's rival, with Veronese troops (Dizionario Biografico; Argenta's own history speaks only of the Ferrarese with Veronese and Modenese help).

Evidence: The Traversari's offices are well listed; the commune's officers for 1199 and the exact share of power between commune and archbishop are not documented in the sources read.

On the map: The archbishop's lands (Argenta, Lugo, Cervia) are coloured with Ravenna although they are the archbishop's, not the commune's. The coastline of 1200 lay several km west of today's.

Primary sources for this realm

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• The Deeds of Innocent III, Anonymous (a curial official, perhaps Peter of Benevento) (about 1208 to 1209). The curia's own account of the pontificate's first decade, with letters copied in. Read online