Born to a family of bankers who had made their fortune partly due to the riches that the university brought to the city, Taddeo’s father Romeo soon instilled in his son a new way of doing politics: that of diplomacy and law. With his legal knowledge and his shrewdness, he earned unprecedented power in Bologna.
Taddeo Pepoli was born in Bologna to a wealthy family of bankers whose fortune was also linked to the University. Indeed, the local banking community was indispensable for the exchange of money, given the provenance from abroad of many of the young students enrolled.
His father Romeo di Zerra belonged to the Guelph Geremei faction, while his mother Azzolina came from the Tettalasini family, linked to the Lambertazzi and their Ghibelline policies.
Romeo was a shrewd and enterprising man, who by the end of the 13th century had managed to achieve unrivalled power, pre-empting that of the Signorias. Thanks to an astute matrimonial strategy, he had managed to bind himself not only to the best Bolognese families, but even to the powerful Este dynasty (in 1317, his daughter Giacoma married the Marquis Obizzo d'Este).
Taddeo too was included in his father’s targeted tactics, and in 1308 he married Bartolomea Samaritani, sister of Bornio, one of the fiercest supporters of the Guelph side.
Romeo had sensed his eldest son's abilities and, after focusing on Taddeo’s education in the legal field, used his power to ensure that the entire city celebrated his son's graduation in Civil Law in 1320 . Never had such an ostentatious and pompous conferment of the licentia docendi been seen in the city. This, of course, aroused quite a bit of criticism from private citizens, who had realised that the ceremony was just a pretext to parade the Pepoli family's pomp and splendour on Bologna. Romeo, moreover, had managed to charge the expenses of the grand ceremony to the Town Council, on the strength of the gratitude that the city authorities owed him after the years he had financed the city's provisioning policy and military initiatives.
Taddeo too had already got into the Town Council’s good graces by offering valuable legal advice even before graduating.
Discontent, however, soon turned into revolt, and the Maltraversi faction, hostile to the Pepoli family’s Scacchesi faction, caused Romeo and his sons to flee from the city in 1321.
The Pepoli family sought refuge and revenge, first in Ferrara, then in Romagna, and finally in Avignon with the pope, but it was not until 1328, after Romeo was long dead, that Taddeo and his brothers managed to return to Bologna with the consent of the papal legate Bertrando del Poggetto.
The latter called the outcasts back to ingratiate himself with the people of Bologna, who were intolerant of his despotism and overbearingness. However, in the end this move was not to his benefit – quite the contrary. After a few years of mutual mistrust and cautious collaboration, the Pepoli’s and their supporters conspired against the high prelate, but they were discovered and imprisoned. When they were freed after much popular unrest, they resumed their independence campaign, which finally caused Bertrando del Poggetto to flee in 1334.
Without papal control, clashes between the Maltraversi and Schacchesi factions resumed in the city and ended with the final victory of the Pepolis and their opponents’ exile.
In 1337, Taddeo Pepoli was proclaimed Captain of the People and “general and perpetual governor of the Commune and people of Bologna”, a title that he later changed to “preserver of the peace and justice” to soften, in the eyes of the citizens, what was in fact an outright Signoria.
His centralising policy was cautious and shrewd, respectful, at least in appearance, of the republican tradition and the various municipal magistracies.
Not so moderate, however, was his attitude towards the Church, whose authority was removed from the city’s administrative matters. This anti-Avignon policy triggered a prompt response from Pope Benedict XII, and the Bolognese Signore hired the University’s best orators to defend his cause. These, however, failed in their intent and the pontiff ended up excommunicating, not only Taddeo, but even the city and the University in 1338. Taddeo then forced the latter to remain in the city (since it could not have a seat in Bologna, it had temporarily moved to the nearby town of Castel San Pietro Terme) and forbade its professors from teaching elsewhere.
Even on this front, however, Taddeo adopted strategies that were functional to his power and, having reconciled with the pontiff, in 1340 agreed to reintroduce a vicarious figure in the city, only to appoint himself to the role.
During his decade of rule, Taddeo Pepoli drastically reduced the activities of the Council of the People, downsized and controlled those of the Council of Elders and Consuls, and invalidated the authority of the Podestà, delegating its legal responsibilities to a curia domini, entirely made up of notarial staff close to him.
On the whole, the situation in Bologna was relatively calm, although very precarious.
In the early years, Taddeo had to face the danger of an expansion of the Della Scalas, having avoided which he found even greater difficulty facing the expansion of the Viscontis. Alliances with Ferrara, Venice and Florence guaranteed a minimum of security for Bologna, at least until the death of its Signore.
This occurred in 1347. Since Taddeo had not chosen a successor, the Council of the People was exceptionally convened and conferred extraordinary powers on his sons Giacomo and Giovanni.
The two Pepoli, who could not live up to the standards of their father and grandfather, were handed a city in serious economic and political crisis, made even worse, the year after their rise to power, by a terrible plague.
They were thus forced, in 1350, to sell Bologna to the menacing Viscontis, ending the era of the Pepolis, who had ruled the city for three generations, thus bringing down on themselves a damnatio memoriae that would last almost two centuries.