318 Guarino da Verona
Robert Grosseteste(New York: Oxford University Press,
2000); Richard W. Southern, Robert Grosseteste: The
Growth of an English Mind in Medieval Europe(Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1986).
Guarino da Verona (Battista, Guarino, Guarini,
Veronese)(1370/74–1460)one of the founders of the idea
of a Renaissance education
Born in 1374 Guarino acquired his expertise in Greek
during a stay in CONSTANTINOPLE between 1403 and
- He returned with an excellent knowledge of the
Greek language and with an impressive collection of
Greek manuscripts. He was invited to FLORENCE as a
teacher and spent four years there, 1410–14; he left
because of a quarrel with Niccolò Niccoli (1364–1437),
who was likely jealous of Gaurino’s mastery of Greek.
After attempts to settle at Padua and elsewhere, he was
called to FERRARAin 1429 by Niccolò d’ESTE(d. 1441), as
a tutor to his son, Leonello (d. 1450), and to be professor
at the university. Except during a period of employment
as Greek interpreter at the Council of FERRARA-Florence
(1438–45), he remained at Ferrara for the rest of his life.
LEGACYLacking much original literary or philosophical ability,
Guarino was a dedicated teacher of LATINand Greek. He
demanded a thorough training in the SEVEN LIBERAL ARTS,
especially grammar, proficiency in writing verse as well as
prose, knowledge of classical history and mythology, and
rhetorical practice in composing speeches on classical
models. In his lectures he commented in detail on the
texts of Latin authors. On occasion he had to defend him-
self for his supposedly overzealous lecturing on the
Roman dramatist Terence when his pupils were supposed
to be in church. Among his greatest innovations were his
ideas that Greek literature and culture had equal impor-
tance to those in Latin in education. He translated
Plutarch’s On the Education of Childrenand revised the
Greek grammar of Manuel CHRYSOLORAS, who had been
one his teachers. With many distinguished pupils and as
a famous exponent of a classical education, he died in
Ferrara on December 14, 1460.
See also SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITIES;VITTORINO DA
FELTRE.
Further reading:Battista Guarino, “A Program of
Teaching and Learning,” Humanist Educational Treatises,
ed. Craig W. Kallendorf (Cambridge: Mass.: Harvard Uni-
versity Press), 260–309; Peter Burke, The Indian Renais-
sance: Culture and Society in Italy (1972; reprint,
Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986).
Guelfs and Ghibellines The application of the terms
Guelfsand Ghibellinesfirst occurred in the early 13th cen-
tury in TUSCANY. They were labels for a major cleavage in
political and social life in central and northern Italy in the
13th and 14th centuries. The Guelfs were supposed to be
partisans of the papacy and an ecclesiastical party. The
Ghibellines were believed to be partisans of the emperor or
the imperial party. This conflict was grafted onto regional
rivalries such as that between Florentine Guelfism and
Sienese Ghibellinism and family and factional conflicts
within towns. There is little evidence of any sort of consis-
tent ideological motivation in their conflict.
The etymology of the words was enriched by con-
temporary fantasy and literary conventions. They perhaps
were derived from the names of two families. The Guelfs
were linked with the Welfs, Bavarian dukes from whom
the emperor Otto IV (d. 1218), who was crowned by the
pope in 1209 but died in 1218, was descended. The Ghi-
bellines were linked with the Waiblingen family or the
SALIANDYNASTY.
This conflict in Italy had begun in the 1170s under
FREDERICKI Barbarossa and the first LOMBARDLEAGUE.
This was aggravated during the conflict between the
papacy and FREDERICKII. The use of these terms and
the conflict itself reached their peaks during the wars
between Frederick’s heirs and the Guelf and papal forces
led for a time by CHARLESI of Anjou, who was victori-
ous in 1266–68. Without leadership the Ghibellines
were on the defensive from then on but had occasional
victories or successful moments, in particular at the
time of the entries into Italy of the emperors Henry VII
(r. 1310–13) and Louis of Bavaria (r. 1327–47). After
that the terms were really only used to disparage one’s
enemies in internal communal politics in Italy.
See also ALIGHIERI,DANTE;BARTOLO OFSASSOFER-
RATO;FLORENCE;MARSILIUS OFPADUA;MANFRED, KING OF
SICILY;GREGORYIX, POPE;INNOCENTIII, POPE;SIENA;
VILLANI,GIOVANNI ANDMATTEO.
Further reading:Marvin B. Becker, Florence in Tran-
sition,2 vols. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,
1967–68); Gene A. Brucker, Florentine Politics and Society,
1343–1378(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,
1962); Philip J. Jones, The Italian City-State: From Com-
mune to Signoria(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997); Carol
Lansing, The Florentine Magnates: Lineage and Faction in a
Medieval Commune(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 1991); Daniel Waley, The Italian City-Republics,3d
ed. (London: Longman, 1988).Guibert of Nogent(ca. 1053–ca. 1121/25)historian of
the First Crusade, author of autobiography
Guibert was born on April 15, 1053, in the Beauvaisis in
FRANCEand was raised by his mother. He was well edu-
cated and became a cleric and eventually an abbot. It is
not clear whether he was actually present at the Council
of CLERMONT, but he certainly did not participate in
the First Crusade. His important history of the First
Crusade (The History That Is Called Deeds of God Done
through the Franks)covered the years 1095–1104 and