or GIBELLINS, a famous faction in Italy, opposite to another called the Guelphs.

Those two factions ravaged and laid waste Italy for a long series of years; so that the history of that country, for the space of two centuries, is no more than a detail of their mutual violences and slaughters. The Gibelins stood for the emperor against the pope: but concerning their origin and the reason of their names we have but a very obscure account. According to the generality of authors, they rose about the year 1249, upon the emperor Frederick II.'s being excommunicated by the pope Gregory IX. Other writers maintain, that the two factions arose ten years before, though still under the same pope and emperor. But the most probable opinion is that of Maimbourg, who says, that the two factions of Guelphs and Gibelins arose from a quarrel between two ancient and illustrious houses on the confines of Germany, that of the Henries of Gibeling, and that of the Guelphs of Adorf.