why was there no serious attempt to create an Italian pretender to the imperial crown during the Middle Ages ?
in particular between Arduino d'Ivrea and Frederick II of Swabia ( who is rightly considered a local emperor in Italy )
then we all know that HRE was something very complex in its juridical-institutional functioning, without wanting to get too entangled in the questions of how it came to this ( starting from the Carolingian empire, its weakening and subsequent dynastic collapse, division into three parts, royal elections of new dynasties in said kingdoms, the Imperial title closely linked to the control of the kingdom of Italy and the defense of the papacy, finally passing to the Ottonians who obtain the title by marriage and conquest ) after all this very brief summary, I want to finally get to the my question : why there was no representative of the Italian kingdom to compete for the imperial crown during the first centuries ( ie when the elective process was not yet so consolidated and codified as instead after the XIII / XIV century )
I know why no one thinks of introducing an Italian representative in the golden bull ( because at the time it had become the practice for the future aspiring emperor to be chosen from among the German nobility ) but in the first centuries it was not so solid as a procedure, given that it was necessary to be recognized and crowned king of Italy ( it was not always enough ) to then be consecrated by the pope as Caesars
was it perhaps the fault of the papacy ? or there weren't serious princes capable of such madness and with a strong area of power behind them to make their ambitions more reliable ( such as the usual Canossas for example )
just as he did not consider the emperors purely prior to Otto I's first campaign ( therefore no Berengar II and co )
I have decided to try to revive this discussion, in particular in light of the new knowledge I have gained on the subject in recent months, in particular I believe that instead of looking for an Italian candidate for the imperial crown, I should opt for a candidate for the role of prince elector of the HRE, let me explain better, from the 13th to the 15th century, well-defined political ideologies were born in the peninsula among the local political and cultural elite, which subsequently became clear aspirations of the main noble families, these
aspirations had as their objective the obtaining of direct integration into imperial affairs, but without having to continuously require the presence of the sovereign on site, to put an end to the war between Guelphs and Ghibellines, which is why the proposal for a Golden Bull ( which circulated for a long time before Charles IV, it was already being discussed under Henry VII and Ludwig IV ) which also included the peninsula was highly anticipated and encouraged, because it was seen as a way to be able to have a say on imperial questions, make use of the institutions and laws connected to it, but without these being imposed by force, in practice they argued that for the good of the imperial institutions it was necessary
that a local potentate could have his say, directly in the imperial elections, representing the kingdom of Italy, since for the official confirmation ( in their minds ) of a candidate for the imperial throne, Rome's consent had to be sought whether it validated it or not the entire process ( understood in its Ghibelline acceptance, i.e. gaining the consent of the people of the Urbe, on the Palatine Hill as an alternative to standard papal confirmation ( 1 ) in simple terms they wondered whether HRE was actually composed of the kingdom of Germany ( from which the ruling dynasty usually came ), the Church ( with the pope as the last step ) and Burgundy and Italy ( because the latter could not have a voice have any say in who will be the next Caesar ? ) in the political thought of the time it was a good way to allow us to have a representative who exercised the Emperor's power by proxy but who was also capable of orienting himself in Italian politics without depending on the support of German resources, but who also allowed him to have his say on the choice of the future sovereign,
therefore only required a more equal distribution of the Electors ( to be precise, their goal was to obtain an expansion of the roster, and we know that Ludwig was actually playing with this idea ) , furthermore this was also seen as a competition to legitimize one's government in the eyes of imperial laws, for example in the case of Milan it served to further consolidate the Visconti dynasty and to protect its conquests, so as to be able to resist the revanchist ambitions of its neighbors, because believed that the simple title of imperial vicar was a mere sop ( since during the 14th/15th century it changed hands several times ), the same thing can be said for the Verona of the Scaligeri family, or for the projects of Giovanni di Vico ( Ghibellines very rooted in the papal territories ), that is, the small cities between Venice, Milan and Florence that do not want to be incorporated by the latter
in fact Charles IV was considered an incompetent Emperor and not capable of daring for the good of the State ( something Cola di Rienzo also accused him of ) especially in a very delicate moment where his influence could be decisive, being technically king of Italy, given that the person who was usually responsible for monitoring the balance of power in the region was, due to circumstances, absent or unable to act ( the Pope ) in particular because his government was obviously compared to that of his predecessors ( in particular Henry VII and Ludwig IV ) who, in addition to having had a long stay both in Italy and in Rome itself ( 2 ), were considered skilled guardians of the Italian public good
1 ) see Ludwig IV, Robert of Naples and Henry VII who were all "acclaimed by the Roman people" on the Palatine, first of all they were proclaimed Patricians/Senators of the Urbe, with the people then subsequently requesting the start of a procession towards the first useful church of the city ( usually one of the 3 major churches free from Guelph control ) and finally, after the coronation, the procession arrived at the Palatine to officially open and preside over the imperial court, where the Emperors held their court for months in which they were in the city, but it must be kept in mind that this process of acclamation by popular consensus was only possible because Rome was not under papal control, but almost in limbo between a civil war between the Guelph and Ghibelline factions, and at the same time was crossed by important municipal experiences in imitation of other Italian cities ( the so-called third Roman republic, after that of the 12th century ) furthermore it was necessary to find an alternative to the normal custom of the papal coronation in Lateran/St. Peter ( in this period was under the control of the Guelphs ), so it was congenial for the Emperors to find a way to get around the problem of the lack of papal approval for their elevation to the title of Caesar, therefore largely referring to ancient customs or to one of the methods for recognizing a pontiff ( after all, until not even 80 years earlier the Pope could be elected by acclamation/popular vote ) complete with the official minting of coins depicting the popular acclamation of the new Caesar, and subsequent procession along the most important monuments of the city along the lines of a classical triumph, which culminated with the imperial coronation in San Giovanni in Laterano, and the creation of new Roman patricians and senators
2 ) if we compare the period spent as Emperor by Charles in Italy with that of his predecessors we see that it is decidedly shorter, take for example Louis IV who remained in Italy for more than 3 years, Charles barely exceeded 5 months ( considering that he certainly did 2 trips to the peninsula ), another example is their period spent in Rome, the first more than 7 months, the second only a week
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