But for another century what we now call Imola was to remain a sparse agglomerate of a few houses, churches and convents for, in November of 1905, Pope Urban II called the First Crusade into being at Clermont-Ferrand.

Urban II brought together all of the bishops and urged them to talk to their friends and fellow villagers and to encourage them to participate in the crusades. Small groups started to form and each group would be self- directing. All the groups planned their own ways to the Constantinople, where they would meet and regroup. They would attack the Turkish forces in Constantinople and hope to regain control of the city.

Won over by the enthusiasm of the bands of crusaders passing on the Via Emilia, our people joined the Normans of Southern Italy, led by Bohemond of Taranto and Tancred, who embarked at Brindisi.

The large Christian armies talked to Alexius I Comnenus, the Byzantium emperor, and agreed to return any of his old land that was recaptured. The armies were skeptical of this demand but agreed anyway. The first attack by the crusaders was on Anatolian, the Turkish capital. Meanwhile the Byzantians were also trying to recapture Anatolian, and later that year, the city surrendered to the Byzantians instead of the crusaders. Clearly, the Byzantians were using the crusaders as pawns to achieve their own goals.

The crusaders again met and crushed the Turkish army scoring a great victory which boosted the troops' moral. Then they captured Antioch and held off relief forces sent to help the Turks. Finally, the crusaders moved on to their main goal-Jerusalem! The city was under Egyptian control and was heavily guarded but the crusaders set up siege machines and, received reinforcements from Genoa, scaled the walls and took the city. Everyone in the city was massacred in the belief that the blood of the former holders purified it. Jerusalem was under crusader control for the next generation or so and they brought in people to inhabit the Holy Land.

Back from the First Crusade loaded with gold and loot taken from the sack of Antioch, which had inured to Bohemond against Raymond of Saint-Gilles' claims, our family added more land across the Via Emilia between their two strongholds of Tossignano on the hills and Conselice on the West. But they were intent in cultivating it, not building more fortresses.

A nasty schism was in the making, but Theobald, a good humble man, seeing that most of the cardinals went over to Honorius, resigned. Honorius also had qualms. Calling the cardinals together he too resigned; but though the cardinals accepted the resignation, they immediately re-elected him. His conscience appeased, Honorius accepted.

By the mid-1100's we went crusading again. "Why another Crusade?" you may think. The answer is simple: loot. Farming eventually produces wealth, but it’s slow business. Historically, our people have been soldiers, engineers, attorneys, doctors, diplomats and, occasionally, poets and painters with the usual misfit sprinkled here and there thorought the generations. Never a banker or a large-scale merchant.

Socio-economic factors contributed as well. At the turn of the Century, farmers had adopted a number of agricultural innovations, including the heavy plow and the horse collar, the three-field system of crop rotation, the use of mills for processing cloth, brewing beer and crushing grain. These innovations, added to the widespread use of iron, increased food production, which in turn increased population, making manpower for expeditions available and, possibly, creating pressure on existing resources which led men to begin looking for external adventures. In addition, the rise of a class of lesser nobles who collected and disposed of local production with relative efficiency made ample resources available.

In 1144, Zengi took Edessa. Immediately thereafter, Pope Eugenius II initiated the Second Crusade and we joined Emperor Conrad III's forces. The affair turned into a disaster that, mercifully, didn't last long.

King Louis VII, from France, set out to meet the Holy Roman Emperor, Conrad III's army in Jerusalem. Conrad's army began their voyage, only to be ambushed. Afterwards, their supplies and cavalry were drastically depleted. The better half of the French army reached Jerusalem and met up with the small remains of the Germans and the old crusaders. Together they ventured to Damascus and its riches, but failed to take the city and were badly defeated. Everybody had had enough and returned home.

By 1150 it was over and our people returned to discover a more immediate threat was developing very close to home: the lack of a major city between them, had invited the neighboring cities of Bologna on the North and Faenza to the South to begin their expansion by capturing several hamlets thus threatening to cut, and isolate, the land we controlled across the Via Emilia between Tossignano and Conselice.

In a matter of seventy years--the interval of two generations--we built a large City capable of sustaining the combined efforts of Bologna and Faenza to dislodge us from our possessions.

The Rocca is known today as "Rocca Sforzesca" after its last occupant, Caterina Sforza. But make no mistake, it was built long before the Sforzas ever existed.

This was accomplished by founding, in 1199, Castel San Pietro seen at right. A fortified castle which commanded the exit of the Sillaro valley, it twice hosted (1306 and 1338) the University because Bologna had been excommunicated. The tower clock was added in the 1750's.

Frederick of Hohenstaufen was born December 26, 1194. His father was Henry, the Holy Roman Emperor son of Frederick I Barbarossa and King of Sicily by virtue of having married Constance, daughter of Roger II of Sicily. The very one who was allowed to keep that throne by our friend Lambert, Pope Honorious. Keep it in mind, because this Sicily thing isn't over yet. Henry, however, died in 1197, leaving Frederick to become Emperor of the Germans at age two and King of Sicily at age three. Constance died six months later, leaving Frederick under the guardianship of Pope Innocent III. Frederick was raised in the court at Palermo until he took over the government at the age of fourteen.

While he apparently loved Sicily above his other possessions he seldom remained there, leaving instead his wife, Constance of Aragon, as regent. Frederick's relations with the Church began peacefully enough, with his former guardian Innocent III gaining him the throne of the Germans and Innocent's successor Honorius crowning him Holy Roman Emperor in 1220. Immediately thereafter, Frederick began making aggressive moves against the Free Communes of Northern Italy, an apparent prelude to an attack on the Papal States. That was when he assaulted and took Conselice. Pope Gregory IX excommunicated Frederick and declared a holy war against him. The war between Frederick and Gregory, and later Innocent IV, spread throughout Italy, into Germany, and in time to all of Europe. The Papacy had little in the way of its own army, but was able to call upon supporters from throughout Christendom to battle the anti-christ Frederick. Frederick had Germany, Sicily, and later Jerusalem, as well as supporters in Italy and other parts of Europe. As a result, rival parties of the Pope and the Emperor, the Guelfs and Ghibellines, battled throughout Europe until Frederick's death in 1250 and, particularly in Italy, long afterwards.

By the 1250's, we had weathered the storm, battered but still in the saddle, and had built Imola to its largest expansion as seen in the map below drawn by Leonardo Da Vinci. The City would remain substantially unchanged to the present days.

Continues...