Florentine Women and Vendetta: The Origin of Guelf-Ghibelline Conflict in Giovanni Villani’s Nuova Cronica

By the fourteenth century, the Guelf-Ghibelline controversy was an established political issue in Italy. The opposition between the pope and the emperor was often used to raise the stakes of conflicts between cities and city-factions, and this antagonism was communicated through detailed visual symbolism. The chroniclers described these struggles and their devastating consequences. Giovanni Villani, in his Nuova Cronica, not only recounted the myths around the foundation of Florence, but he also created an elaborate narrative of its recent history. The illustrated copy of this work (ca. 1341–48, ms Chigiano L VIII 296,