found it easy
to restore the unforgotten rights of the Holy See there and these were
ratified by Otto IV. and by Frederick II. as the price of papal
support.
It will thus be readily understood that if, at the opening of the
thirteenth century, there was one city in Italy more certain than
another to be at the mercy of the universal quarrel of Guelf and
Ghibelline, that city was Ravenna. In its larger sense that quarrel
was her inheritance. It was the one thought which filled her mind. But
here, as elsewhere, the great quarrel was insoluble or at any rate not
to be solved. It merely bred faction and divided the city against
itself. Guelf and Ghibelline tore Ravenna as they tore Florence and
Siena in pieces.
The two great Ghibelline families were the Ubertini and the Mainardi
and these at first gained the mastery of the city; but in 1218 Pietro
Traversari with the aid of the Mainardi turned the Ubertini out and,
what is more, made himself master.
Pietro Traversari was succeeded as Podesta in 1225 by his son Paolo,
who became Guelf and fought in Innocent IV.'s quarrel against the
emperor Frederick II.
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