Tra Lega Lombarda e pars Ecclesie. L’evoluzione della seconda Lega Lombarda e la leadership dei legati papali negli anni a cavallo della morte di Federico II (1239-1259) [Between Lombard League and Pars Ecclesie. The Second Lombard League and the Leadership of Papal Legates in the years around the death of Emperor Frederick II 1239-1259]

The author examines the structural changes of the Lombard League after the welding of its alliance with the Papacy against Frederick II in 1239. In the light of overlooked sources such as the works of the Bolognese rhetorician Guido Faba, the paper argues that the escalation that brought the conflict against the emperor to take on the trappings of the crusade in 1240 coincided with the transformation of the League from a corporate body into little more than a multilateral alliance devoted to military and diplomatic matters. Moreover, the League came to be included in a larger pars ecclesie and fell under the leadership of a series of papal legates. The League, however, kept some vestiges of its identity inside the Pars Ecclesie at least until 1252, and there is evidence of frictions with the papal legate, especially from Bologna, while the leadership of the legate, at least in the forms acquired after 1239, came to an end in 1258-9, after the failure of the crusade against Ezzelino da Romano and following a deliberate policy of the Papacy.