at the instigation of Philip le Bel, and the Papal see was transferred
to Avignon. The Popes lost their hold upon the city of Rome and upon
those territories of Romagna, the March, and S. Peter's Patrimony which
had been confirmed to them by the grant of Rodolph of Hapsburg (1273).
They had to govern their Italian dependencies by means of Legates,
while, one by one, the cities which had recognized their sway passed
beneath the yoke of independent princes. The Malatesti established
themselves in Rimini, Pesaro, and Fano; the house of Montefeltro
confirmed its occupation of Urbino; Camerino, Faenza, Ravenna, Forli,
and Imola became the appanages of the Varani, the Manfredi, the
Polentani, the Ordelaffi, and the Alidosi.[1] The traditional supremacy
of the Popes was acknowledged in these tyrannies; but the nobles I have
named acquired a real authority, against which Egidio Albornoz and
Robert of Geneva struggled to a great extent in vain, and to break which
at a future period taxed the whole energies of Sixtus and of Alexander.

[1] See Mach. _Ist. Fior_. lib. i.

While the influence of the Popes was thus weakened in their states
beyond the Apennines, three great families, the Orsini, the Savelli, and
the Colonnesi, grew to princely eminence in Rome and its immediate
neighborhood. They had been severally raised to power during the second
half of the thirteenth century by the nepotism of Nicholas III.,
Honorius IV., and Nicholas IV. This nepotism bore baneful fruits in the
future; for during the exile at Avignon the houses of Colonna and Orsini
became so overbearing as to threaten the freedom and safety of the
Popes. It was again reserved for Sixtus and Alexander to undo the work
of their predecessors and to secure the independence of the Holy See by
the coercion of these towering nobles.