Banners, ensigns, heraldic colours, followed the divisions of faction.
Ghibellines wore the feathers in their caps on one side, Guelfs on
the other. Ghibellines cut up their fruit at table crosswise, Guelfs
straight down; Ghibellines sported white roses, Guelfs affected those
that were red. Yawning, throwing of dice, gestures in speaking, and
swearing, served as pretexts for distinguishing the one half of Italy
from the other. So late as the middle of the fifteenth century, the
Ghibellines of Milan pulled down the figure of Christ from the high
altar of Crema, and burnt it, because the face was turned towards the
Guelf shoulder.[19] The Grimaldi were strong Guelfs; the county of Nice
was so as well, but the town was Ghibelline. The Lascaris of Tende and
Ventimiglia, the Dorias of Dolceacqua and Oneglia were Ghibelline.
The county of Ventimiglia had been formed in 778 by Charlemagne, and
given by him to a Genoese noble, Guido Guerra, with the title of
Marquess of the Maritime Alps, on condition that he should maintain at
his own cost a company of soldiers to defend the littoral within his
Marquisate. The county passed in the thirteenth century to William, son
of the Greek Emperor Lascaris II., of Nicæa, who married the heiress
and descendant of the Guido Guerra family. But William Lascaris soon
after ceded the county to Charles of Anjou, in exchange for diverse
other fiefs in the interior of Provence, amongst others that of
Tourvès, between Brignoles and S. Maximin, where may be seen the ruins
of the noble castle of the Lascaris. In 1266, Charles of Anjou, in his
turn, ceded the county of Ventimiglia to the Grimaldi and Fieschi,
consuls of the Republic of Genoa, on the condition that they should
furnish provisions and munitions to the Provençal troops occupying the
kingdom of Naples.
The county of Tende was founded by Charles of Anjou for the Princess
Irene, daughter of Theodore Lascaris, and sister of the above-mentioned
William, when she married Robert Guerra of the family of the Counts of
Ventimiglia, and Robert then abandoned his patronymic of Guerra and
assumed that of Lascaris. The county of Tende subsisted till 1579, and
was then ceded by Henrietta, Duchess of Maine, last descendant of the
Lascaris-Guerra to Emmanuel-Philibert, Duke of Savoy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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