Guelfismo e ghibellinismo nello Stato della Chiesa negli anni dell’esilio di Dante

The essay focuses on dichotomy between Guelphs and Ghibellines in central Italy at the age of Dante’s exile. In detail, it analyzes the elaborate historical events in the early XIVth Century of an important region of the Papal State: the March of Ancona. The text analyzes conflicting relations between cities, signori and papal authority in light of the various systems of alliance. The essential question is to understand whether these systems can trace back only to the traditional dichotomy between Guelphs and Ghibellines. The silence of the sources on these names until 1330 invites to making thereby same hypotheses.