Italian Peninsula Factions

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kurunt

Sergeant
Ok....I'm doing some historical research on Italy and I hope to give some usefull informations.
Unfrotunately the medieval history of Italy is really full of events, people, factions and itself can be used to make a HUGE mod  :shock:
During "Low Middle Ages" Italy was divided in an infinite number of "State City" every one fighting each other, making and breacking alliances. The only homogeneous territory was the Kingdom of two Sicilies, ruled by Federico II's successor (his brother).
BTW I'll try to make a semplification. There is also a large number of vassals, but I will start a research further...

Around 1257 aD  we have major factions/regions:

-Patrimony of St. Peter (Holy Roman Church)
Ruler:
Pope Alessandro IV
Heraldic:
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Stemma-Alessandro-IV.jpg

-Genova's Republic (Repubblica di Genova)
Ruled by:
Guglielmo Boccanegra "Primo Capitano del Popolo" (First people's Captain)
Heraldic (This is the coat of arms of Genovese Repubblic, not of Boccanegra's family...cant find it, sorry)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/it/6/6e/Genova-Stemma.png

-Venice's Republic (Repubblica di Venezia)

-Kingdom of two Sicilies (Regno delle Due Sicilie)
Ruled by:
Manfredi di Sicilia 1232-1266 (Manfredi of Sicily)
Heraldy:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/Armoiries_Manfred_de_Sicile.svg
He was the son of Federico II di Svevia (deceased in 1250) and Bianca dei Conti di Lancia.
The real Emperor was Corrado V di Svevia "Corradino" (1252-126:cool:, but he was too young to rule.
Heraldy:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/Coat_of_arms_of_the_Kingdom_of_the_Two_Sicilies.svg

-Lombardy2 (Lombardia) with Milan (Milano) as major City 1
Ruled by:
Martino della Torre "Capitano del Popolo"
Heraldy:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/Coa_fam_ITA_della_torre.jpg
He was the son of Pagano della Torre. In 1257 he suppressed a popular revolt with the help of Arcibishop Leone di Perego and Paolo di Soresina and conquested this Castles: Seprio, Martesana, Fagnano, Varese.

-March of Verona2 (Veronese League) with Verona as major City
Ezzelino III da Romano "Podestà di Verona", he was a Guelph
Heraldy:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/it/7/76/Stemma_Ezzelini.jpg
See this link for lots of informations:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Verona
And this are some armors of that culture:
http://www.academia-san-zenone.com/img/foto/chi-siamo2%20bis.JPG

-March of Ancona  with Urbino as major City
(I still cant find infos on the major personalityes of this area)


Political map of Italy 1138-1254

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/shepherd/roman_empire_1138_1254.jpg

This is closest to 1257 aD so could be more usefull.

The most important fact of the years arond 1257 ad in Italy is that we had two rival factions in the North region:
1. Guelphs, supporters of the Holy Roman Empire (in this case  the ruler is Corrado V di Svevia "Corradino" 1252-126:cool:
2. Ghibellins, supporters of the Papacy (Pope Alessandro IV 1199-1261)
3. Holy Roman Empire in the South (Kingdom of two Sicily) see above.
4. Two major Sea Repubblic: Venezia and Genova (Genoa on the map)

So we can say that we have 4 factions... to simplify...

1
Ex Lombard League, ceased with the death of Federico II (1250 aD)

2In the north of Italy we find two rival factions: Guelphs and Ghibellin (Guelfi and Ghibellini)
  Here are the two heraldy:
  http://www.paroledimezzo.it/words/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/ghibellini.gif
  http://www.fortezze.it/photo/storiche/Guelfi.gif
 
Guelph Cities:
Bologna
Arezzo
Faenza
Modena
Osimo
Pisa
Pistoia
Siena
Spoleto
Todi

Ghibellin Cities:
Brescia
Forlì
Crema
Cremona
Genova
Lodi
Mantova
Orvieto
Perugia
TO OTHR: if you want I can send you all that I find via PM
 
1. Guelphs, supporters of the Holy Roman Empire (in this case  the ruler is Corrado V di Svevia "Corradino" 1252-126:cool:
2. Ghibellins, supporters of the Papacy (Pope Alessandro IV 1199-1261)
3. Holy Roman Empire in the South (Kingdom of two Sicily) see above.
4. Two major Sea Repubblic: Venezia and Genova (Genoa on the map)

Wouldn't it be better to have five? Venice and Genoa each a separate state? Other than that, sounds very interesting to play with.
 
All these factions are really tiny. They wouldn't survive very long.
Is there noe way to compress them down to 3 (probably attaching something to other facitons)?
 
1. Guelphs, I wrote down a list of 10 towns/castles, but they should be too many on the map  :???:
2. Ghibellins... idem
3. The Sea Repubblics can be made of 3 or 4 towns/castles.
4. The Kingdom of two Sicily can be strong enough because it is extended in half Italian territory,
5. The Holy Roman Curch (you have forgotten it) should start immediately a holy war against the Empire (Ferdinando II and his family were Excomunicadet by Pope's predecessor)

Probably 5 factions in a so small map area is a little difficult to implement.... BUT if at the start of the game you put Guelphs and Curch in war against Gibellins and Empire they will become shortly 1 faction. The Sea Republics should be neutral because of their commercial nature. Then we will have 2 factions  :cool:

FrisianDude:
Wouldn't it be better to have five? Venice and Genoa each a separate state?
That goes in contrast with Shmidt's consideration
 
I'm not going to add every little city-state...  The scale of the mod is too big for all these to be added.  They were either parts of the HRE, Papal states or Kingdom of Sicily...

Think on a bigger scale.  Those need to be compressed somehow, into 2 preferrably.  Papacy and Kingdom of Sicily, those that were HRE vassals will become part of the HRE.  And I don't intend to script history as it happened.  I just want to give a picutre of things in 1257 ad, whatever happens after that, I don't care.
 
I'm not sure what you mean by that.

I want the mod to show the picture of Europe in 1257 AD, what happens in the mod once you start playing it is not going to be controlled.  Whatever happens, happens, that's the beauty of it.  If I were to script history you'd be better off just watching the History Channel.

The mod scale is not small...  City-states don't really fit into this model, these little factions were dependent or vassals of bigger states.  Instead of making them independent factions I want them to become parts of those bigger factions on which they relied or were submissive to.

 
Ok, I understand the concept.... so.... macro history needed  :wink:

Only two factions should be well for the game. If you want the game to start precisely in the year 1257 aD we have this:

Kingdom of two Sicilies (Holy Roman Empire) ruled by Manfredi of  Siciliy, his vassals can be taken from the Ghibellin's house.
Papal States (Holy Roman Church) ruled by Pope Alexander IV , his vassals can be taken from the clergy or from Guelph's house (they are the military hand of the Pope)

I hope that the heraldy I found can be usefull and on wikipedia I can find more. It should be interesting to use Italian names for the factions and the lords... they sound more.... historical  :cool:

Kingdom of two Sicilies -> Regno delle due Sicilie
Papal States -> Patrimonio di San Pietro

If you want to represent the XIII Century in general, it would be usefull to start considering the whole Holy Roman Empire (Germany and the Two Sicilies) with Federico II as Emperor.

I'll start to do some specific research and then collect a list of possible vassals for the two factions...
 
I don't think you should have the Guelfi and Ghibbellini as two separate factions. They were more like leagues or general political perspectives of states, which were constantly shifting with new cities.

The members joined usually so as to have protection from their nearby rivals not because of some kind of long term affiliation with the other members of the league.
 
Yes, I know that, but the mod starts in 1257 aD, so we just need to pick some major historical characters, towns ect. from that factions in THAT year, give them hostile relations and the game goes on itself  :wink:
I'm doing an accurate research on the most important families and their family trees. I found this page, It's an huge archive, so it will take a bit:

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categoria:Condottieri_italiani

there is the English version too, but it's not updated.
 
Hi, just an idea from previous games that focus on this era. Perhaps you should have the italian peninsular represented as the italian states and then have cities represent major states capitals, castles as minor states and villages as lesser ones. Thier opinions towards each other can be shown through the lords opinions of each other. I just know that scenarios such as this where you have the HRE and France as unified nations italy tends to get eaten up pretty quick and by having them unified aswell you are making them stand a chance.

just my thoughts on the matter. BTW the game I am refering to is Europa, a custom map scenario from warcraft 3. :razz: I had great fun playing that back in the day.
 
Since were talking about Italian Peninsula, is it normal that in the new WIP map that there are so many mountains in the Italian Peninsula? I know it's a WIP, so I understand that it may be only temporary, but still why even do it in he first map?
 
maniac said:
Hi, just an idea from previous games that focus on this era. Perhaps you should have the italian peninsular represented as the italian states and then have cities represent major states capitals, castles as minor states and villages as lesser ones. Thier opinions towards each other can be shown through the lords opinions of each other. I just know that scenarios such as this where you have the HRE and France as unified nations italy tends to get eaten up pretty quick and by having them unified aswell you are making them stand a chance.

just my thoughts on the matter. BTW the game I am refering to is Europa, a custom map scenario from warcraft 3. :razz: I had great fun playing that back in the day.
I remember Europa, that was an awesome scenario, such fun diplomacy! :grin:  :grin:
 
Finzi said:
maniac said:
Hi, just an idea from previous games that focus on this era. Perhaps you should have the italian peninsular represented as the italian states and then have cities represent major states capitals, castles as minor states and villages as lesser ones. Thier opinions towards each other can be shown through the lords opinions of each other. I just know that scenarios such as this where you have the HRE and France as unified nations italy tends to get eaten up pretty quick and by having them unified aswell you are making them stand a chance.

just my thoughts on the matter. BTW the game I am refering to is Europa, a custom map scenario from warcraft 3. :razz: I had great fun playing that back in the day.
I remember Europa, that was an awesome scenario, such fun diplomacy! :grin:  :grin:
Great Game,if you are talking about Europa Universalis.Especially Europa Rome Vae Victis!
 
They're not, but EUIII, Crusader Kings, EURome and other games by Paradox are great too.

***

There has been a wrong interpretation of Sicily here. It's not the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, because it hasn't been split up yet. It will be when the king of Aragon, Peter the Great, conquer Sicily and leave the Continental part (the modernally called Kingdom of Naples) to Charles d'Anjou as part of a treaty.

In 1257, the regent for Conradin was his halfbrother Manfred von Hohenstaufen. You have the same problem we have with Freidrich II, he's a chilg king and the game doesn't allow kids in places of power.

The Kingdom of Sicily was not part of the HRE, but Conradin held Swabia as his own through his uncle Ludwig von Baiern (but the duke of Swabia was Conradin), and he was not Emperor. He held Cyprus too, as king of Jerusalem.

The coat of arms was this one:

545px-Armoiries_Manfred_de_Sicile.svg.png

Maybe you should represent Venice (for sure, it wasn't part of the HRE either). The rest could be part of the HRE, yes, unless there was some sort of anti-Emperor league in action around 1250 (like the Lombard League).

Pisa was ruled by Ugolino della Gherardesca in 1280, and I don't have any earlier account. Maybe someone with access to archives in Pisa can help you with it.
 
I did already replace the coat of arms and I think I'll add Genoa as part of the HRE and Venice as a separate entity and that + the kingdom of Sicily + papal states should cover the entire peninsula, I hope.
 
othr said:
I did already replace the coat of arms and I think I'll add Genoa as part of the HRE and Venice as a separate entity and that + the kingdom of Sicily + papal states should cover the entire peninsula, I hope.

Venice, for its part, also controlled most of the Dalmatic settlements of mention, along with many islands in the Aegean sea, like Euboea (Negroponto).

I don't think Genoa controls already the straits in Azov, Kerch and Caffa, or Corsica, you should look into it. Either way, if Corsica and Sardinia weren't Genoese, they were Pisan.
 
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