were styled Captains of one or the other party.

[Footnote 15: See Bruno's _Cena delle Ceneri_, ed. Wagner, vol. i. p.
133, for a humorous story illustrative of the state of things ensuing
among the lower Italian classes.]

The wars between France and Spain revived the almost obsolete dispute,
which the despots of the fifteenth century and the diplomatic
confederation of the five great powers had tended in large measure to
erase. The Guelfs and Ghibellines were now partisans of France and
Spain respectively. Thus a true political importance was regained for
the time-honored factions; and in the distracted state of Italy they
were further intensified by the antagonism between exiles and the ruling
families in cities. If Cosimo de'Medici, for example, was a Ghibelline
or Spanish partisan, it followed as a matter of course that Filippo
Strozzi was a Guelf and stood for France. Paul III. managed to maintain
himself by manipulating these factions and holding the balance between
them for the advantage of his family and of the Church.

He thus succeeded in creating the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza for his
son, Pier Luigi Farnese, that outrageous representative of the worst
vices and worst violences of the Renaissance. It will be remembered that
Julius had detached these two cities from the Duchy of Milan, and
annexed them to the Papal States, on the plea that they formed part of
the old Exarchate of Ravenna. When Charles decided against this plea in
the matter of Modena and Reggio, he left the Church in occupation of
Parma and Piacenza. Paul created his son Duke of Nepi and Castro in
1537, and afterwards conferred the Duchy of Camerino on his grandson,
Ottavio, who was then married to Margaret of Austria, daughter of
Charles V., and widow of the murdered Alessandro de'Medici. The usual