Paul’s jealousy of the Spanish ascendancy in Italian affairs caused him to waver between the Papal and Imperial, Guelf and Ghibelline, parties.  These names had lost much of their significance; but the habit of distinction into two camps was so rooted in Italian manners, that each city counted its antagonistic factions, maintained by various forms of local organization and headed by the leading families.[15] Burigozzo, under the year 1517, tells how the whole population of Milan was divided between Guelfs and Ghibellines, wearing different costumes; and it is not uncommon to read of petty nobles in the country at this period, who 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 system of massacre, exile, and confiscation had reduced the signorial family of the Varani at Camerino to extremities.  The fief reverted to the Church, and Paul induced the Cardinals to sanction his investiture of Ottavio Farnese with its rights and honors.  He subsequently explained to them that it would be more profitable for the Holy See to retain Camerino and to relinquish Parma and Piacenza to the Farnesi in exchange.  There was sense in this arrangement; for Camerino formed an integral part of the Papal States, while Parma