Sciarra Colonna

Giacomo "Sciarra" Colonna (* around 1270; † 1329 ) was an Italian nobleman and a leading member of the influential Roman noble family of Colonna . Sciarra was a leader of the " Ghibellines " of Rome , the local branch of the political "party" of Italy, which was more hostile to the Pope and loyal to the emperor, and whose opponents were the " Guelfs ".

Sciarra Colonna and Guillaume de Nogaret take Pope Boniface VIII prisoner. (Depiction from the Nuova Cronica by Giovanni Villani , 14th century)

He achieved importance through the conflict between Colonna and Pope Boniface VIII. In the course of the conflict, his property and other members of the Colonna family were stripped of his property on May 23, 1297 and he and his relatives had to submit to the Pope on October 15, 1298. In 1303 he was at the court of the French King Philip IV , who in turn had started a power struggle with Pope Boniface. In the same year, the Pope was captured by armed men under the leadership of Sciarra and the French Chancellor Guillaume de Nogaret in Anagni , but was soon freed by citizens of the city. The Pope died a short time later, possibly as a result of the violent attack.

The next Pope, Benedict XI. , excommunicated Sciarra and brought him to justice. However, after Benedict's death, a partisan of France, Clemens V , took the chair of Peter. The Colonna were reinstated in their rights.

As Ghibelline, Sciarra welcomed the German Emperor Henry VII's march to Italy a little later and took his side.

In the following years he played an important role in Rome's politics: in 1312 and 1313 he was a senator, in 1327 he was elected Capitano del Popolo. During this time he supported the Roman-German Emperor Ludwig the Bavarian , who had himself crowned emperor in Rome by representatives of the Roman people - and not by the Pope. Sciarra was probably among them. When the emperor left Rome under pressure in August 1328, Sciarra also had to flee the city. He died in an unknown place a year later, probably before mid-September.

literature

• Fiorella Simoni Balis Crema: Colonna, Giacomo . In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages (LexMA). Volume 3, Artemis & Winkler, Munich / Zurich 1986, ISBN 3-7608-8903-4 , Sp. 55.
• Daniel Waley:  Colonna, Giacomo, detto Sciarra. In: Alberto M. Ghisalberti (Ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 27:  Collenuccio – Confortini. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 1982, pp. 314-316.

Remarks

1. ↑ Jörg Schwarz: Turning away from the papal coronation claim. The imperial coronation of Ludwig of Bavaria and the Roman nobility. In: Hubertus Seibert (ed.): Ludwig the Bavarian (1314-1347). Empire and rule in transition. Regensburg 2014, pp. 119–146, here: p. 126.