Radagaisus. Hartmann Schedel, Liber chronicarum (Nuremberg Chronicle). Nuremberg: Anton Koberger, 1493, p. 135v.
Rabanus Maurus (c. 780-856) was a teacher, scholar, writer, and active churchman whose career reflects the Carolingian renaissance. He was born at Mainz, and as a boy he became an oblate at the monastery of Fulda. In 802, he was sent briefly to Charlemagne's court and then to Tours to study with Alcuin, who was the leading figure in shaping Charlemagne's program to revive education and learning. Rabanus returned to Fulda before 804, became master of the monastic school, and then in 822 became the abbot. As abbot, he not only promoted the monastic school, library, and scriptorium but also built churches, carried on pastoral work, and managed the abbey's extensive properties. As a consequence, Fulda grew to be a major center of learning in the Frankish world and constitutes a case study of the nurture of learning in local centers remote from the Carolingian court. Rabanus was a supporter of Louis I the Pious and Louis's eldest son, Lothair (Lothar) I, as representatives of the ideal of imperial unity, a position that cost him his abbacy in 842 during the fraternal struggles following the death of Louis in 840. In 847 Rabanus was elected archbishop of Mainz, and until his death he utilized that office to promote church reform, defend doctrinal orthodoxy, and support missionary activity.
Rabanus was i he most prolific of all Carolingian writers. He produced a huge body of literary works in many forms: scriptural commentaries, basic textbooks on the liberal arts {De arte grammatica and De computo), penitentials, collections of sermons, a martyrology, poems, and letters, some of which reflected his views on current political and theological issues. Perhaps his most influential works were De institutione clericorum, a manual for priests dealing with the nature and exercise of their office and with the education required to prepare them for their duties; and De rerum naturis, an encyclopedia seeking to provide the basic knowledge required to read and interpret scripture in a spiritually fruitful way.
Rabanus's literary works are primarily compilations drawn from earlier writers, and so he has received little credit as an original thinker among modern scholars. However, this evaluation misses the inspiration that guided his intellectual, literary, and pastoral career. Deeply imbued with the fundamental concept guiding the Carolingian renaissance, Rabanus believed that the challenge facing his age was the recovery in usable form of the basic wisdom that defined the true Christian religion. This wisdom—enshrined in scripture, the vast body of Latin patristic writing, and even Latin pagan literature—needed to be sorted out and organized so that it could be learned and applied by his contemporaries. To what was essentially a pedagogical task, Rabanus brought considerable talent: extensive learning, a sense of essentials, skill as an organizer of borrowed materials into straightforward works of instruction, and an ability to adapt received knowledge to new situations. His corpus of writings indicates one of the major accomplishments of the Carolingian renaissance: the reestablishment of fruitful contact with a rich and complex tradition. For his contribution to the Carolingian revival of learning, he perhaps deserves a title given him by modern scholars, preceptor Germaniae.
See also Charlemagne; Frankish Kingdom; Louis I the Pious
RICHARD E. SULLIVAN
B. Rabani Mauri Fuldensis Abbatis et Mogunti Archiepiscopi Opera Omnia, 6 vols. In Patrologia latina, ed. J. Migne, Vols. 107-112. Paris, 1864-1878.
Hrabanus Maurus: Lehrer, Abt und Bischofi ed. Raymund Kottje and Harald Zimrnermann. Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur. Mainz: Abhandlungen der Geistes- und Sozialwissenschafdichen Klasse, Einzelveröffentlichung, 4. Mainz and Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1982.
Kottje, Raymund. "Hrabanus Maurus." In Lexikon des Mittelalters, Vol. 5. Munich and Zurich: Artemis Verlag, 1990, cols. 144-147.
Peltier, H. "Raban Maur." In Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, Vol. 13. Paris: Latouze et Ané, 1937, cols. 1601-1620.
Rissel, Marie. Rezeption antiker und patristischer Wissenschafi bei Hrabanus Maurus: Studien zur karolingischen Geistesgeschichte. Lateinische Sprache und Literatur des Mittelalters, 7. Bern: Herbert Lang; Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1976.
Radagaisus (d. 406) was a pagan Goth who crossed the Danube and invaded Italy in 405-406. He met with little resistance there, and he had forced the city of Florence to the point of surrender when the Roman regent Stilicho arrived with relief troops. Stilicho forced Radagaisus and his army to withdraw from Florence to Fiesole and then cut off their supply line. Consequently, Radagaisus was starved into submission. When Radagaisus tried to abandon his soldiers, he was captured by the Romans and executed outside the gates of Florence on 23 August.
Radagaisus. Hartmann Schedel, Liber chronicarum (Nuremberg Chronicle). Nuremberg: Anton Koberger, 1493, p. 135v.
See also Stilicho
JENNIFER A. REA
Heather, Peter. Goths and Romans: 332-489. Oxford: Clarendon, 1991.
Martindale, John. The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, Vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980.
The troubadour Raimbaut de Vaqueiras (c. 1155or 1160-1207) was born in Vacqueyras, near Orange in Provence, and probably died near Messinople in Thrace (northern Greece). He was of lowly origins and soon adopted the profession of jongleur. Since during this period the courts of Provence were somewhat lukewarm in their patronage of poets, he tried his luck on the other side of the Alps, where the lords of Montferrat, Malaspina, and Este were vying with each other to welcome troubadours and jongleurs. In particular, the brilliant court of Montferrat, where Raimbaut arrived in the 1180s, was very hospitable to exponents of the new poetry; and he soon formed a bond of sympathy with the marquis's third son, Boniface, who was about his age. In due course this ripened into one of the most intimate and affectionate associations ever recorded between a poet and his patron, which was not severed until Boniface's tragic death in 1207. Before reaching Montferrat, Raimbaut had been forced to wander, on foot and hungry, across the plains of Lombardy, as he recalled in a famous tenso with another troubadour, Albert of Malaspina. Afterward, as a close friend of the marquis, Raim-baut fought valiantly alongside his patron on several occasions and was instrumental in saving Boniface's life during a Sicilian campaign of 1194 for Emperor Henry VI, a feat that earned him a knighthood. In the spring of 1203, Raimbaut went on the Fourth Crusade, joined the marquis and the Venetians on their way to Constantinople, and was wounded during the ensuing siege. After the conquest of Constantinople in 1204, Raim baut accompanied Boniface on a campaign in Greece; later he participated in the activities of Boniface's court at Salonika. Raimbaut very likely died with his friend during Boniface's ill-advised incursion into the Rhodope Mountains, on 4 September 1207.
Raimbaut left twenty-six poems, of which eight are preserved with musical notation. His multilingual descort is particularly famous: one stanza is in Occitan, another in Italian, a third in French, a fourth in a kind of Gascon, a fifth in a type of Gal-lician-Portuguese, and a sixth in a combination of the five languages, each having two lines. The lyric-epic composition called Carros, which described an imaginary war of merit, beauty, and youth between his patroness—Boniface's sister Beatrice—and a band of more than twenty ladies of the Italian nobility, is no less famous and is one of the jewels of Occitan literature. Another fine composition, completed in 1205 in Greece, is his Epic Letter (its modern title). This work is unique in the Romance literatures of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries: it consists of three poems rhyming -at, -o, and -ar and contains a request to the marquis for material compensation for his services, concomitantly serving as an autobiography.
HANS-ERICH KELLER
The Extant Troubadour Melodies, ed. Hendrik van der Werf and Gerard A. Bond. Rochester, N.Y.: Van der Werf, 1984, pp. 289-298.
The Poems of the Troubadour Raimbaut de Vaqueiras, ed. Joseph Linskill. The Hague: Mouton, 1964.
Bertolucci Pizzorusso, Valeria. "Posizione e significato del canzoniere di Raimbaut di Vaqueiras nella storia della poesia provenzale." Studi Mediolatini e Volgari, 11, 1963, pp. 9-68.
Brugnolo, Furio. Plurilinguismo e lirica medievale da Raimbaut de Vaqueiras a Dante. Rome: Bulzoni, 1983.
Crescini, Vincenzo. "La Lettera Epica di Rambaldo di Vaqueiras." Atti e Memorie della R. Acc. di Scienze, Lettere, ed Arti in Padova, n.s., 18, 1901-1902, pp. 207-230.
Zingarelli, Nicola. "Bel Cavalier e Beatrice di Monferrato." In Studi letterari e linguistici dedicati a Pio Rajna nel quarantesimo anno del suo insegnamento. Florence: Tipografia E. Ariani, 1911, pp. 557-575.
Rainulf (Ranull Drengo, died c. 1045) was the leader of a band of Norman mercenaries who would establish the first permanent Norman principality at Aversa. Having landed in southern Italy with his brothers in 1016, Rainulf eventually placed himself and his followers at the service of various Lombard princes who in one way or another were determined to expand their principalities at the expense of the Byzantine empire, which maintained more than a nominal control over the south. At some point, Rainulf placed himself at the service of Pandulf IV, prince of Capua, who, taking advantage of the death of Guaimar IV of Salerno and the minority of Guaimar V, proceeded in 1027 to take over Naples and remove the ruling duke, Sergius IV (d. 1037). Later, Rainulf, having married the sister of Duke Sergius, helped Sergius to regain Naples. For this Service, in 1029, Rainulf was granted the village of Aversa; when fortified, it became a strong defensive outpost for Naples and also the base for the Normans' expansion in southern Italy, a rallying point for incoming Normans seeking employment as mercenaries.
After the death of his first wife, Rainulf married the niece of Pandulf IV of Capua and thus returned to the service of Pandulf. But when Conrad II (r. 1024-1039) moved southward to rearrange the political order there, Rainulf once again switched allegiance, giving his support to the prince of Salerno, Guaimar V. In 1038, Conrad recognized Guaimar as prince of Salerno and Capua and invested Rainulf as count of Aversa. Rainulf assisted Guaimar in the conquest of Amalfi in 1039 and Gaeta in 1040. In the campaigns against the Byzantines, the Normans fought alongside the Lombards, and although the Normans were still only allied mercenaries, they were responsible for a series of victories. The Normans would eventually assume the leadership of the Apulian revolt, but Rainulf himself died in June of 1044 or 1045.
See also Aversa; Conrad II; Normans; Sergius IV, Duke of Naples
ANTHONY P. VIA
Chalandon, Ferdinand. Histoire de la domination normande en Italie et en Sicilie, 2 vols. Paris: Libr. A. Picard et Fils, 1907.
Loud, G. A. The Age of Robert Guiscard: Southern Italy and the Norman Conquest. Essex: Pearson Education, 2000.
Rangerius (d. 1112) was bishop of Lucca from c. 1096 until his death. He was a talented literary writer in Latin and a vigorous champion of the Gregorian reform. His life before August 1097, when he first appears in the Lucchese charters, is a mystery: his nationality (perhaps French), his training, his possible monastic vocation, and even the date of his election as bishop are all controversial. Most of our evidence for Rangerius is derived from his two surviving poems, whose considerable stylistic merits have commanded far less attention than their utility as historical sources.
Vita metrica s. Anselmi lucensis episcopi (Metrical Life of Saint Anselm, Bishop of Lucca) was presumably written between 1096 and 1099. It is an elegant treatment, in 3,650 elegiac distichs, of the life and deeds of Rangerius's recent but not immediate predecessor, the reforming bishop Anselm of Lucca; and it is valuable as a document of the ecclesiastical history of Lucca and also for the light it sheds on attitudes toward the role of the church in late eleventh-century Lucchese society. De anulo et baculo {On the Ring and the Staff) was seemingly written in late 1110; it is in 530 elegiac distichs and constitutes a reply to a recent treatise upholding imperial rights in the investiture of bishops. In this work, Rangierus focuses mainly on the sacramental nature of the staff and the ring presented during the investiture ceremony and offers an eloquent affirmation of the freedom of the church from lay (and especially royal) interference. According to Donizo of Canossa, who quotes verses that are absent from the text as transmitted, the poem was dedicated to Matilda of Tuscany; but as we have it now, it is addressed to the papal chancellor John of Gaeta (the future Pope Gelasius II).
At least two prose writings have also been ascribed to Rangerius: a sermon on the translation, in 1109, of the remains of the martyrs Regulus, Jason, Maurus, and Hilaria; and a sermon on the dedication of the church of Saint Martin (Lucca's cathedral, dedicated 6 October 1070). The first sermon, whose most authoritative form has been edited only in part, is probably Rangerius's work and has been accepted as such by at least one relatively recent scholar; the other attribution, however, has found little support.
See also Latin Literature; Lucca
JOHN B. DILLON
De anulo et baculo, ed. Ernst Sackur. Monumenta Germaniae Historica Libelli de Lite Imperatorum et Pontificum, 2, pp. 505-533.
Guidi, Pietro. "Per la storia della cattedrale e del Volto Santo (note critiche)." Bollettino Storico Lucchese, 4, 1932, pp. 169-186. (Attributed sermons. See especially pp. 182-186.)
Vita metrica s. Anselmi lucensis episcopi, ed. Ernst Sackur, Gerhard Schwartz, and Bernhard Schmeidler. Monurnenta Germaniae Historica SS, 30(2), pp. 1152-1307.
Guidi, Pietro. "Delia patria di Rangerio autore della 'Vita metrica' di s. Anselmo vescovo di Lucca." Studi Gregoriani, 1, 1947, pp. 263-280.
Nobili, Mario. "Il 'Liber de anulo et baculo' del vescovo di Lucca Rangerio, Matilde, e la lotta per le investiture negli anni 111 0— 1111." In SantAnselmo vescovo di Lucca (1073—1086) nel quadro delle trasformazioni sociali e della riforma ecclesiastica, ed. Cinzio Violante. Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medio Evo, Nuovi Studi Storici, 13. Rome: Nella Sede dell'Istituto, 1992, pp. 157-206.
Savigni, Raffaele. "L'episcopato lucchese di Rangerio (1096-c. 1112) tra riforma 'gregoriana' e nuova coscienza cittadina." Ricerche Storiche, 27, 1997, pp. 5—37.
Severino, Gabriella. "La Vita metrica di Anselmo da Lucca scritta da Rangerio: Ideologia e genere letterario." In Sant'Anselmo vescovo di Lucca (1073-1086) nel quadro delle trasformazioni sociali e della riforma ecclesiastica, ed. Cinzio Violante. Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medio Evo, Nuovi Studi Storici, 13. Rome: Nella Sede dell'Istituto, 1992, pp. 223-271.
Ratchis was a king of the Lombards (r. 744-749). He had been made duke of Friuli, succeeding his father, Pemmo, by King Liutprand. In 744, Ratchis overthrew Liutprand's successor, Hildeprand. As king, Ratchis inherited the strong realm created by Liutprand, and he continued Liutprand's policy of expansion at the expense of the empire. Although Ratchis was successful in a number of projects, he faced an increasingly serious situation as the popes succeeded in breaking a long-lasting friendship and cooperation between the Lombards and the Franks, and the Lombard dukes became increasingly restive under strong royal control. Ratchis was overthrown by his brother Aistulf in 749, whereupon Ratchis retired to the monastery of Monte Cassino. He emerged briefly in 756 in an unsuccessful attempt to regain the throne.
See also Aistulf; Liutprand; Lombards
KATHERINE FISCHER DREW
Hallenbeck, Jan T. Pavia and Rome: The Lombard Monarchy and the Papacy in the Eighth Century. Philadelphia, Pa.: American Philosophical Society, 1982.
Noble, Thomas F. X. The Republic of Saint Peter: The Birth of the Papal State, 680-825. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1984.
Wickham, Chris. Early Medieval Italy: Central Power and Local Society, 400-1000. Totowa, N.J.: Barnes and Noble, 1981.
Ratherius, bishop of Verona (Rather of Luttich, c. 887 or 888-974), was born in Germany. In 926 he went to Italy, where he found favor with Hugh of Aries, who, in addition to his Provencal holdings, had just become king of Italy. Ratherius became bishop of Verona in 931. Unfortunately, he sided with Arnulf of Bavaria when Arnulf invaded Italy in 934. Hugh defeated Arnulf and imprisoned Ratherius for two and a half years.
Ratherius wrote his greatest work, Praeloqua, in prison, as a guide for those beset by suffering. His contemporary Liudprand of Cremona praised it, but some modern critics believe it is marred by self-pity.
See also Latin Literature; Verona
MARTIN ARBAGI
The Complete Works of Rather of Verona, trans., intro., and notes Peter L. D. Reid. Binghamton, N.Y.: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1991.
Ratherius Veronensis. Praeloquiorum libri VI, Phrenesis, Dialogus confessionalis, Exhortatio et preces, Pauca de vita Sancti Donatiani, fragmenta nuper reperta. Curante CETEDOC, Universitas Catholica Lovaniensis (Louvain, Belgium) Lovanii NovL Turnhout: Brepols, 1984. (Microfiche.)
Reece, Benny R. Learning in the Tenth Century. Greenville, S.C.: Furman University Press, 1968.
Reid, Peter L. D. Tenth-Century Latinity. Rather of Verona. Malibu, Calif.: Undena, 1981.
Ravenna is strategically situated along the land corridor of eastern Emilia between the Po valley and the Via Flaminia as it passes southward through the great barrier of the Apennines; thus the city commanded the historic passage between old Cisalpine Gaul and Italy proper. It could be made virtually impregnable because it was erected in the tidal marshes inward from the Adriatic shore—"built entirely on piles, and traversed by canals which you cross by ferryboats," as the Greek geographer Strabo (first century B.C.) describes it, almost anticipating Cassiodorus's depiction of the Venetian lagoon. Ravenna was the southernmost base of Julius Caesar's proconsular realm, and from it he marched south to cross the boundary of his province, the Rubicon River, to confront the senate in 49 B.C. Octavian (Augus tus)—recognizing the needs of the Roman navy, and appreciating Ravenna's location—used it as a maritime base during the civil wars and then created the new port of Classis ("Fleet"), more than 2 miles (3 kilometers) southeast of the town, as one of the empire's major naval stations. Between Classis and Ravenna proper a suburb known as Caesarea developed.
Through the early history of the empire, Ravenna apparently grew and prospered. Christianity is said to have come to it as early as the first century after Christ, and tradition holds that Saint Apollinaris, a Syrian-born disciple of the apostle Peter, became its first bishop (and possible martyr). A later bishop, Ursus (r. 370-c. 396), is credited with building the first Christian church in Ravenna (c. 385). Though Ravenna played a role in the recurrent military crises of the second and third centuries, its facilities may have already begun to decay, as its shore silted up. However, its decline, if any, would have been suddenly arrested in 402, when the young Theodosian emperor Honorius (r. 395-423) decided to transfer his court to Ravenna from Milan, which was then the imperial capital. This step has been explained as resulting from Honorius's sense of vulnerability at the time of Alaric's entry into Italy, but it also very sensibly took into account the comparative security and defensibility of Ravenna as a seat of government. Thus, in the confusion following the fall ofStilicho in 408, and despite the collapse of military organization that allowed Alaric's rampage through Italy and his symbolically devastating sack of Rome in 410, Ravenna remained the inviolate governmental center from which order could be reestablished.
Another of Ravenna's assets was its immediate access to the Adriatic as a route of possible aid from the eastern court of Constantinople. Its value was demonstrated when an eastern force was sent to depose a usurper who had seized power after Honorius died childless, and to establish as his successor his young nephew, Valentinian III (r. 425-455). Valentinian, though, was a worthless prince, whose mother, Gaila Placidia (Honorius's sister), was the actual ruler until her death in 450. She preserved Ravenna as functioning capital, adorning the city with new buildings. During her regime, and under its prelate Peter Chrysologus (from 432 to 450), the see of Ravenna replaced that of Milan in jurisdiction over neighboring bishoprics.
Galla Placidia also maintained ties with Rome, where her son held his court; indeed, it was in Rome that she died and was buried. During the tumultuous third quarter of the fifth century, which witnessed the final debasement and destruction of the empire's western court, Rome alternated with Ravenna as the focus of events, but it was in Ravenna that the last western emperor, the boy Romulus Augustulus (r. 475-476), played out his brief reign and was deposed. His nemesis, the barbarian general Odovacar, then ruled as patrician and king of Italy (476493) with Ravenna as his seat. There he made his stand when he was defeated by the invading Ostrogothic king, Theodoric: Odovacar used the city as his bargaining chip in a negotiated agreement of joint rule, before he was treacherously murdered.
The regime of Theodoric (493-526) opened a new chapter for Ravenna, in which its importance increased. Rome remained the seat of the old senate, with all the trappings of the Roman past that Theodoric so carefully maintained and respected, but Ravenna was his residence. When Ravenna was confirmed as the Ostrogothic capital, its economic life revived, it became a cultural center, and it saw renewed building projects. Several churches and Theodoric's own famous tomb still testify to his era. However, Theodoric's hope of infusing permanent Germanic leadership into Roman civilization was doomed. Various difficulties, and the murder of his daughter, Amalasuntha, provided an excuse for intervention by the Byzantine empire: its emperor, Justinian (r. 527-565), made the Ostrogothic realm the second target in his ambitious program of reconquest. As imperial commander, the brilliant general Belisarius initiated the era of the Gothic wars, which at first promised a quick victory but turned into a devastating struggle that lasted for two decades. The incompetent Gothic king Theodahad (r. 534-536) was replaced by Witigis (r. 536-540), who fought desperately until he was compelled to surrender Ravenna to Belisarius. The revival of the Goths under Totila (r. 541-553) renewed a conflict that was finally brought to an end by the victories of a new imperial commander, Narses.
Ravenna itself was spared the ruin that most of Italy experienced; largely untouched, it benefited from a campaign of adornment and beautification appropriate to its dignity, and to Justinian's propaganda. Justinian's appointee as prelate of Ravenna, Maximian (r. 546-556), was the first to use the title of archbishop. Narses and his successors maintained the city as the center of restored imperial government and as the bastion of the imperial territories remaining in northern Italy after the Lombards began their own inundation of the peninsula (568). Against their threat, the imperial regime was reorganized, by the later decades of the sixth century, as the exarchate. Ravenna became the capital directly of a province of that name, but its viceregal exarchs also became the governors-general of all of remaining imperial Italy.
Although the Lombards of Spoleto were able to seize Classe in 579 and hold it for ten years, Ravenna itself held firm. Its exarch, Smaragadus, if unable to provide aid to points farther south, at least restored imperial control of the cities along the Via Flaminia. This resecured connection between Ravenna and Rome effectively divided the Lombards' power between the northern kingdom ruled from Pavia and the separate duchies of Benevento and Spoleto. Ravenna seems to have prospered generally through the seventh century, as the economic center of its region. Nevertheless, there were recurrent periods of tumult: to the intermittent Lombard threats were added lurches in Constantinopolitan policies, episodes of local unrest, tension with the papacy in Rome over Ravenna's independence, and the rebelliousness and ambition of some of the exarchs. In 709, Emperor Justinian II (r. 685-695; 705-711), convinced of Ravenna's hostility and disloyalty, sent a force to punish the city: its leading citizens and its bishop were arrested and carried off to Constantinople (the former to be executed, the latter to be blinded), and the city itself was devastated.
Church of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna. Photograph courtesy of Christopher Kleinhenz.
Ravenna recovered but was racked by new disturbances as the Byzantine government attempted to impose its new religious policies of Iconoclasm over the opposition of the popes in Rome. The sympathies of Ravenna's clergy and population were fully on the side of the popes, and the city only narrowly escaped disaster at the hands of another punitive expedition from Constantinople in 727. But it was the final Lombard threat that signaled Ravenna's fall from greatness. The restless Lombard king Liutprand directed his forces against the city, which received no relief from the Byzantines, and actually seized and held it for a few years (737-740). It was recovered with the help of a fleet from fledgling Venice, but the restored exarchate retained little of its former control over the strained components of Byzantine Italy: the Lombards courted the support of the papacy, against the interests of the Byzantine empire, for control of northern Italy. A new pope, Zacharias (r. 741—752)—the pope who was to initiate a momentous alliance with the Franks—was able in 743 to persuade the aging Liutprand to cease putting pressure on Ravenna. But Liutprand died the following year, and in 751 his successor, Aistulf (r. 744-757), at last achieved the Lombards' aim of seizing Ravenna and ending once and for all its role as a base for Byzantine rule in northern Italy.
Neonian baptistery, Ravenna. Photograph courtesy of Christopher Kleinhenz.
Ravenna continued to be the administrative and ecclesiastical center for its region under new overlords, but they were not long to be Lombard. The personal appeals of Pope Stephen III (r. 752—757) to the Franks resulted in the Donation of Pepin (754) and the successive campaigns of Pepin the Short (755, 756). Aistulf was defeated, and the new territorial enclave of the papal states was created as a Frankish protectorate. Ravenna and the immediate lands of the old exarchate now became part of that regime, and in 757 the new pope, Paul I, visited Ravenna, to achieve territorial control and complete the subjection to Rome of Ravenna's long-independent archbishopric.
The quarrels of the last Lombard king, Desiderius (r. 757— 774), with Pepin's son, the great Frankish ruler Charlemagne (r. 768-814), resulted in the final destruction of the Lombard monarchy—or rather the annexation of its crown by the Frankish dynasty—and the renewal (774) of the Donation of Pepin. Though Ravenna and its district remained part of the papal patrimony, it was also under temporal control of its Frankish protectors. Charlemagne himself, visiting the city, marveled at its Byzantine splendors and dreamed of emulating them by copying Ravenna's architecture in his palace chapel at Aix-la-Chapelle and by carrying off some of Ravenna's art. In the aftermath of this tumultuous subjection, Ravenna's past glories and its continuing struggle against the papacy found their strongest literary voice in the work of Agnellus Andreas, a cleric who belonged to a prominent family. His Liber pontificalis ecclesiae Rav ennatis, written c. 830-845, though spotty and problematic, remains our most important source for the city's history and life.
Conquest by the Franks and control by the papacy reduced Ravenna, meanwhile, from a capital city to a backwater provincial town. Its decline was accelerated by the decay of its old port facilities and the waning of its commercial activity—to be replaced by the restless enterprise of Venice. Nevertheless, as the Franks' power faded and as the northern papal territories were appropriated into the neo-Lombard "kingdom of Italy" (888-962), immediate ecclesiastical control was exercised anew by Ravenna's archbishops, who were given a freer hand as a result of the papacy's period of decadence. With the reestablishment of German dominion over northern Italy by Otto I (r. 936-973) and his dynasty, the prelates of Ravenna became their enthusiastic supporters. These prelates remained agents first of the Saxon emperors and then of the Franconian successors, holding high positions at court and winning for Ravenna intermittent recognition as the administrative seat of German power in Italy, and for themselves confirmation of their own temporal power in the region.
Ravenna flourished sufficiently in this era to contribute at least three distinguished personages to the religious life of the time. Two were of the local Onesti family: Saint Romuald (born c. 956), educated in the Benedictine house of Classe, became a monastic reformer who founded (1012) the order of the Camaldoli; and Pietro degli Onesti, known as Blessed Peter of Ravenna (II Peccatore, died c. 1119), a local man of great piety, built one of the few important structures in Ravenna of the central Middle Ages, the church of Santa Maria in Porto Fuori. The third was Peter Damian (1007-1072), the great reform thinker and writer in the service of the revitalized papacy.
During the eleventh-century papal reform, Ravenna's archbishops remained staunchly pro-German; and during the investiture controversy, one of them, Archbishop Guibert, was elected as an imperialist antipope, Clement III (1080). Because of this stance, Rome briefly deprived Ravenna of power (1106-1118); and the emergence of communes around the territory permanently deprived its archbishops of temporal authority in most of the towns, though they were able to dominate the aristocratic commune of Ravenna itself and enjoy continuing wealth and prestige. Under these archbishops, Ravenna saw some revival of church building and decoration in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. When Frederick I Barbarossa (r. 1152-1190) attempted to reassert German rule in northern Italy, Ravenna again took the lead in supporting the empire. However, in 1198, with changes in circumstances (including increased regional competition from Venice), Ravenna shifted its loyalty and became a leader of the cities in Romagna and the Marches against Hohenstaufen interests; in the process it became reconciled with the papacy and once again recognized the suzerainty of Rome.
Thereafter, Ravenna's archbishops were pushed into the background as a new circle of powerful aristocratic families emerged, among them the Anastagi, Dusdei, Umbertini, Mai-nardi, and Traversari. Competing for seigneurial power, and specifically for the new office of podestà, they made Ravenna another urban battleground for the pro-imperial and pro-papal factions. At first, the Ghibellines under the Ubertini and Main-ardi were able to dominate the city, but in 1218 the Mainardi shifted their alliance to Pietro Traversari. His son, also named Pietro, became podestà in 1225, converted to the Guelf cause, and supported Pope Innocent IV against Emperor Frederick II. The emperor managed to seize Ravenna and hold it tor eight years (1240-1248), having expelled Pietro. The city was subsequently restored to papal control, and the Traversari reestablished their power. In 1276, the papacy's title to the city, along with the full regions of Romagna and the Marches, was recognized anew and definitively legalized by a decree extorted from a feeble new German emperor, Rudolf of Hapsburg.
Church of San Vitale, Ravenna. Photograph courtesy of Christopher Kleinhenz.
However, this triumph of Rome was theoretical, and reality stood in contrast to it. In 1275, one of the archetypal condottieri, the soldier-adventurer Guido (Minore) da Polenta, achieved sufficient ascendancy to drive out the Traversari and take power as capitano del popolo, a position he held until his death in 1310. In the process, he managed to create one of the first examples of a virtually independent territorial signoria in medieval Italy. His power was bolstered by a strategic alliance with his previous enemies, the Malatesta family, who controlled Rimini. The seal of this alliance was the marriage of his daughter, Francesca, to Malatesta's elder son. Francesca's tragic love affair with her handsome brother-in-law, Paolo, and their murder at her husband's hands became material for one of the most famous passages in Dante's Inferno (Canto 5).
The control of the Polenta family over Ravenna was tightened by Guido Minore's son, Lamberto (r. 1310-1316), who was followed by a nephew, Guido Novello da Polenta. A cultivated man with an appreciation for art and letters, Guido Novello attracted to his court such notables as the artist Giotto and, above all, the poet Dante Alighieri, together with Dante s daughter and two sons. Dante apparently arrived in Ravenna in 1317; he is said to have given lectures and instruction there, while putting the finishing touches on his Comedy. In 1321, Dante went to Venice as ambassador on Guido's behalf; on his way back, he was infected with fever, and he died after reaching Ravenna. The grief-stricken Guido planned a noble tomb for Dante, whose remains (repeatedly solicited by the Florentines, but in vain) rested temporarily at the Franciscan church and were then shifted to a series of sepulchres before being placed in the edifice of 1760 where they still remain.
Guido Novello was soon expelled by a rebellious kinsman and transferred his talents to Bologna, where he was elected capitano del popolo (1322); his hope of returning to Ravenna was never realized. His successor, Ostasio da Polenta, was recognized as vicar by both the German emperor and the pope and ruled with great cruelty from 1321 to 1345. The next Polenta lord, Bernardino (r. 1345-1359), was no less brutal and was briefly overthrown by his brothers. Guido Lucio (r. 1359-1389) ruled better, but he too was overthrown by relatives and was succeeded by his son, another Ostasio (r. 1389—1431). The last of the Polentani, yet another Ostasio (r. 1431-1449), had attained his position (barely) through an alliance with Filippo Maria Sforza of Milan. He was then tricked into visiting Venice, where he found himself deprived of his city and sent off to encloisterment and assassination. From 1449 to 1509, Ravenna was held by its old rival, the Serenissima; thereafter, it returned to papal control, under which it remained with only brief interruptions until its incorporation into the emerging Italian state in 1859.
By the late medieval period, Ravenna had lost all its maritime operations and based its prosperity on its operation of the salt flats at Cervia, from which it supplied this valued commodity to the entire Po valley region as its principal export. Not until the creation of the Canale Corsini in 1739 was Ravenna's access to the sea renewed. In modern times, the discovery of natural gas fields revitalized the economy of the city and its region.
Only scraps of Ravenna's Roman past can be traced. Much still remains of the basically Roman city walls, however, along with elements of the gates: the walls were maintained over the centuries, and an impressive Venetian rocca (fortress) enclave at the northeastern corner represents their continuance in the fifteenth century. A number of Ravenna's earliest churches were totally rebuilt (mainly in the Baroque period): these include, notably, the duomo, also known as the Basilica (or Ecclesia) Ursiana; its original foundation is attributed to Bishop Ursus (either 370-386 or 403-429).
Ravenna does, nevertheless, have the finest constellation of monuments and art of the early Christian era in the Byzantine style. Most of these monuments, as we now have them, date from the sixth century, but four important ones survive from the fifth century, and two are associated with one of the great figures in Ravenna's history, Empress Galla Placidia. One of these two, the church of San Giovanni Evangelista, was originally built to fulfill a vow made when the empress and her two children, the emperor Valentinian III and the princess Honoria, were caught in a terrifying storm while sailing from Constantinople to Ravenna for her restoration there. The large basilican church was ruthlessly rebuilt in Baroque style in 1747; still later, after it had been damaged by bombing in World War II, what was left of the original was extensively reconstructed, so that what is seen today preserves little of the empress's actual foundation.
However, the so-called Mausoleum of Galla Placidia is virtually intact and is Ravenna's earliest jewel. It was built originally as a chapel extending the narthex of her church of the Holy Cross: that church has been effectively eliminated by subsequent rebuildings, leaving isolated this small, cruciform chapel, apparently dedicated to Saint Lawrence. It contains three carved sarcophagi, and they have sometimes been identified with the burials of Honorius, Valentinian III, and Galla Placidia. There are stories that Galla Placidia's seated, mummified body survived here until the sixteenth century. In fact, though, it remains debatable whether the building actually functioned for burials, and it is almost certain that the empress herself was interred in Rome, not here. The giory of this little building is not burials but rather the stunning mosaic decoration (which has received some modern restoration). The central domical vault represents the starry heavens, with zoomorphic symbols of the four evangelists; in the spandrels below are figures of saints. Lunettes in the axial arms show (over the door) Christ (with features of Apollo or Orpheus) as the Good Shepherd tending his flock, and (opposite) Saint Lawrence with the fiery grill of his martyrdom and a display of the four Gospel books (though this representation has also been described as the mature Christ burning books of the heretical Arians). The lunettes of the longitudinal arms have animal scenes (doves at fountains; and souls, represented as stags, thirsting after eternal water). The four arm vaults display stars, and the borders are rich in the vegetational collages so beloved of Roman mosaicists.
Another fifth-century monument is the octagonal baptistery that is part of the latter-day cathedral complex. This baptistery is said to have been originally a chamber of the Roman baths; a few fragments of Roman sculpture are to be found in the exterior walls. It is known as the Orthodox or Neonian baptistery (the latter name from its decorator, Archbishop Neon, who served c. 449-459). Its walls are encrusted with arcading and rich marble and stucco revetments, above which are two circles of mosaics: the first showing eight shrines in separate panels, containing either enthroned crosses or altars with open Gospel books; the second showing the twelve apostles carrying their crowns. In the center is one of the earliest representations (much restored) of Christ's baptism, attended by the river-god Jordan.
The last of the monuments of this period is of uncertain date. This is a small chapel dedicated to Saint Andrew, part of the fragments of the medieval archbishops' palace incorporated within later rebuildings (and now part of the Archiepiscopal Museum). Some traditions trace its building back to the bishop and saint Peter Chrysologus (c. 432-450); others date it to Bishop Peter II at the end of the fifth century; and the mosaics are sometimes dated to the time of Archbishop Maximianus (546-556). These mosaics, much reworked, include handsome figural and symbolic elements in the vaulting over an elegant pavement. Even more impressive is the antechamber, which has vaulting with rich naturalistic decoration, framing a panel over the door showing a beardless Christ in full armor (symbolizing the church militant), treading down the lion and the adder and holding an open book revealing the motto Ego sum via Veritas et vita ("I am the way of truth and life").
Several structures survive from Theodoric's ambitious building program; most of these were recast under the imperial restoration, though at least two have come down to us with something of their original character. The great church of Santo Spirito, built for the Arian Christian rites of the Ostrogoths, has been totally lost in rebuildings of later centuries. But near it is the so-called Arian baptistery, which may have functioned earlier as a bath chamber. This small brick octagon is devoid of interior decoration—except at the crown, where there is another mosaic of the baptism of Christ (here too with the river-god Jordan), surrounded by a circle of apostles: Peter holds his keys, Paul holds a book, and the rest hold crowns.
The other original Ostrogothic building is the extraordinary Mausoleum of Theodoric, just outside the northeast corner of the city walls. It is built of finely dressed and squared stone and has two stories: the lower decagonal, the upper circular, surmounted by an enormous monolithic capstone said to weigh some 300 tons. It was presumably originally surrounded by a colonnade of some sort, now lost, which would have included stairs to the otherwise inaccessible upper chamber. Its curious design has given rise to much debate and dispute regarding derivation (Roman or Germanic?) and symbolism (a tent? a helmet? a crown?). The upper chamber still contains a porphyry receptacle, presumably the king's sarcophagus; however, Theodoric's body was desecrated and removed at some point well before the ninth century, when the building was used as a church (Santa Maria della Rotunda) by an adjacent Benedictine monastery.
A principal monument begun by Theodoric but transformed under the imperial restoration is one of Ravenna's greatest churches, known now as Sant'Apollinare Nuovo. Its Arian builder originally dedicated it to Christ; when it was converted officially to the Catholic rite by the archbishop and saint Agnellus in 560, it was rededicated to Saint Martin (though it was also known as the Caelum Aureum from its onetime golden roofing); it received its final consecration—to Ravenna's traditional first bishop, Apollinaris—in the ninth century; the word Nuovo distinguishes it from the great church of Apollinaris in Classe. The cylindrical campanile also dates from the ninth century. The present portico and facade date from the sixteenth century, when the decaying church was overhauled.
The interior of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo is in basilican form, with a wide central nave and two side aisles. Whatever decoration was made around the apse has been lost, first in an earthquake of the sixth century and then during further replacements in the eighteenth, (The interior west wall is likewise bare, though now affixed to it is a mosaic fragment showing a crowned royal portrait decorated and labeled as Justinian, but perhaps originally Theodoric.) However, what does remain—the mosaic decoration of the nave—is spectacular in size and quality. In the lowest mosaic register on either side, directly above the (rebuilt) arches of the colonnade, are processions of saints. The procession on the southern side emerges from a representation (at the west end) of Ravenna, dominated by the portico and ceremonial portal of Theodoric's palace, but with some of the city's churches visible in the background. The twenty-five saints are all male—each identified in lettering—holding palms and martyrs' crowns. The procession concludes (at the east or altar end) at a great throne, where Christ sits in majesty, surrounded by four angelic sentinels. On the northern side is a procession of female saints— twenty-one virgin martyrs; these too are identified by name labels and are holding palms and crowns. They emerge from a representation at the west end showing Classis, through the gate of its walls, behind which are ships in the harbor. At the head of this female procession we find the three Magi (with name labels), carrying their gifts before the star of Bethlehem, as they reach the common destination at the east end, showing another throne on which sits a majestic Madonna holding the baby Jesus, while another four angels stand guard. In the register above on both sides, alternating with windows, are figures of prophets and church fathers, sixteen on each side. Above them, in bands that run the full length of each side, are mosaic compartments. Those over the heads of the figures show ceremonial throne-shrines. Alternating with them, and over the windows, are scenes, thirteen on each side, showing episodes from the life of Christ. Those on the north side, over the female saints, show miracles performed by Christ; those on the south side, over the male saints, show episodes from Christ's passion and resurrection. These magnificent mosaics were begun under the Ostro gothic regime but were modified in mid-century after the Byzantine conquest. Revisions are particularly evident in the scene of Theodoric's palace, where certain figures were eliminated from the king's retinue.
Three important churches, of which two survive, were built directly by the Justinianic regime, with considerable financial contributions from a local official, Julianus Argentarius. The church that was lost was San Michele in Africisco (whose apse, greatly restored, was transferred to Berlin for display during the nineteenth century). One of the surviving churches is the remarkable San Vitale, begun under Bishop Ecclesius (522-532) and dedicated in 547 by Archbishop Maximian. It is octagonal in shape, and its dome is supported by eight piers in two stories linked by columned galleries. San Vitale has been linked to architectural experiments in Constantinople during Justinian's time, and its pattern was the model for Charlemagne's palace chape! (to which were transferred some decorations stripped from San Vitale). The original mosaic decoration survives only in the spectacular chancel. Under a richly decorated arch—focused on a medallion of the Lamb, arch medallions of Christ and the apostles, and scenes of Jerusalem and Bethlehem—the apse conch shows Christ triumphantly enthroned, with Saint Vitalis (to whom Christ offers a crown) and Bishop Ecclesius (holding a model of the church, as its donor) presented to him by attending archangels. On either side above the altar, symbols and figures of the evangelists frame Old Testament scenes prefiguring the eucharist: the sacrifices of Abel and Melchisidech, and Abraham's serving of the three angels and his sacrifice of Isaac. The most famous works are two panels on either side of the apse wall, showing Justinian and Theodora as contributors to the church. Backed by guards and retinue, Justinian appears in court regalia, as if in a procession, carrying a gold basin, to be received by Archbishop Maximian (whose name is explicitly given) and others (whom some scholars have tried to identify with Belisarius and Julianus). Theodora is shown in a side chamber with eunuchs and handmaids, near a fountain, carrying her gift, a chalice; her rich garb includes a representation of the three Magi.
The second of the surviving Justinian churches is Sant'Apollinare in Classe. This massive basilican structure—built, it is said, at the site of Saint Apollinaris's grave—was begun by Bishop Ursicinus (532-536) and consecrated by Archbishop Maximian (549). The marble decorations of the nave and aisles were removed as plunder by Sigismondo Malatesta in 1449. The surviving, glorious mosaic decorations are all in the apse. Below a medallion of Christ and the symbols of the evangelists and portrayals of the Christian flocks coming forth from Jerusalem and Bethlehem, the apse conch evokes the Transfiguration, symbolized as an enormous cross mounted within a star-studded circle; it is attended on the sides by Moses and Elijah, and it dominates a paradisiacal landscape full of vegetation and populated by a flock of twelve sheep (representing the apostles). Above, the hand of God gives a blessing; below, centrally placed, is Saint Apollinaris in prayer. Between the windows are portraits of prelates of Ravenna. On the right side wall, clearly in imitation of the Justinian panel in San Vitale, the emperor Constantine IV (r. 668-685) is shown with two of his sons and attendants awarding privilegia (a large rolled document, so labeled, authorizing the see's autocephalous or independent status) to Archbishop Repa-ratus. This mosaic, though in a debased and cruder style, is the latest of the great Byzantine masterpieces in this medium in Ravenna.
A superlative work from the Justinianic era is displayed in the Archiepiscopal Museum: this is the throne of Maximianus, made in Constantinople as a gift from Justinian to Achbishop Maximianus. Over a wooden frame are mounted a network of ivory panels, showing Christian saints, the Old Testament story of Joseph, and miracles of Christ.
The latest monument of Ravenna's early medieval era is a facade wall to be seen not far from the church of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo, It was traditionally misidentified with the palace of Theodoric, but it is apparently the front portion (later used as a church) of the palace of the Byzantine exarchs. Excavations behind it have revealed portions of the foundations.
See also Alaric the Visigoth; Belisarius; Benevento; Byzantine Empire; Camaldoli; Charlemagne; Condottieri; Dante Alighieri; Desiderius; Exarchate of Ravenna; Frederick I Barbarossa; Frederick II Hohenstaufen; Galla Placidia; Gothic Wars; Guido Novello da Polenta; Honorius, Emperor; Innocent IV, Pope; Investiture Controversy; Justinian I; Liut prand; Lombards; Milan; Mosaic; Narses; Odovacar; Pepin III the Short; Romuald of Ravenna, Saint; Spoleto; Stephen II, Pope; Stilicho; Theodora; Theodoric; Totila; Venice; Witigis; Zacharias, Pope
JOHN W. BARKER
Agnellus. Liber pontificalis ecclesiae Ravennatis, ed. O. Hodder-Egger. In Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores Rerum Langobardicarum et Icalicarum Saec. VI IX. Hannover, 1878, pp. 265-391. (See also partial version in A. Testi Rasponi, ed. Rerum Italicarum scriptores, 2(3). Bologna, 1924.)
Bovini, Giuseppe. Ravenna Mosaics: The So-Called Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, the Baptistery of the Cathedral, the Archiepiscopal Chapel, the Baptistery of the Arians, the Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo, the Church of San Vitale, the Basilica of Sant'Apollinare in Classe, trans. Giustina Scaglia. Greenwich, Conn.: New York Graphic Society, 1956.
Capeti, Sandro. Mosaici di Ravenna. Ravenna: Edizioni Salera, n.d.
Deichmann, Friedrich W, Ravenna, Hauptstadt des sp'dtantiken Abendlandes, 3 vols, (in 5). Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1969-1989.
Hodgkin, Thomas. Italy and Her Invaders, 376-814, 8 vols. Oxford: Clarendon, 1880-1889. (Reprint, New York: Russell and Russell, 1967.)
Hutton, Edward. The Story of Ravenna. London: Dent, 1926.
Martinez Pizarro, Joaquin. Writing Ravenna: A Narrative Performance in the Ninth Century. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996.
Paolucci, Antonio. Ravenna: An Art Guide. Ravenna: Edizioni Scala, 1971.
Simson, Otto G. von. Sacred Fortress: Byzantine Art and Statecraft in Ravenna. Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 1948. (Reprint, 1976.)
Rayniero (d. 1358) belonged to a prominent pro-imperial family in Forli and spent much of his youth in exile. He then lived in Ravenna but studied in Bologna with Bertoluccio Preti. Rayniero taught in Bologna from 1319 until 1324; he taught the Infortiatum and Digestum vetus, leaving the Digestion novum and the Code to his colleague Giacomo Bottrigari. Ricciardo Malombra was another colleague. During an interdict imposed on the city in 1338, Rayniero left for Pisa. Then he moved to Padua, where he lectured until his death. Rayniero left annotations to various passages in the Digest and the Code, plus a few brief works and legal opinions. The great Bartolo da Sassoferrato studied with Rayniero and Bottrigari.
THOMAS M. IZBICKI
Clarence Smith, J. A. Medieval Law Teachers and Writers Civilian and Canonist. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1975.
Re Giovanni (Jean de Brienne, c. 1180-1237) was born in France and spent several years in Italy. From the end of the First Crusade until his death, he participated in numerous military ventures; the chronicler Salimbene praises him for his physical attributes and his military prowess. Re Giovanni acquired the title of king of Jerusalem through his marriage to the daughter of Corrado di Monferrato. His own daughter Isabella married Frederick II in 1225, and Re Giovanni probably spent some time at the magna curia, where he familiarized himself with the Sicilian poetic language. The Vatican Codex (Lat. 3793) attributes one poem to him, but his authorship has been called into question by some scholars. Lazzeri (1942) assumes that this poem, a rare example of the discordo genre, may have originally been written in French and then translated by Re Giovanni. Three French poems attributed to Re Giovanni were actually written by Jehan de Braine, count of Macon and Vienne, who died in the Holy Land in 1239.
See also Italian Prosody; Scuola Poetica Siciliana
FREDE JENSEN
Lazzeri, Gerolamo. Antologia dei primi secoli della letteratura italiana. Milan: Hoepli, 1942, pp. 496-501.
Monad, Ernesto. Crestomazia italiana deiprimi secoli, rev. ed., ed. Felice Arese. Rome, Naples, and Città di Castello: Società Ed. Dante Alighieri, 1955, pp. 102-104.
Torraca, Francesco. Studi su la lirica italiana del Duecento. Bologna: Zanichelli, 1902, pp. 92-93.
See Normans
Reliquaries serve as containers of sacred Christian relics dating from the earliest cult of the martyrs. Relics are objects identified with the life of Christ or with parts of the bodies of martyrs— people who died for their religious beliefs. Reliquaries fall under a variety of types: shrines, caskets, coffers, reliquaries, tabernacles, or diptychs and triptychs.
Among the earliest containers of saints' relics, small openings were cut into the receptacle, usually a small box, for oils to be extracted for distribution among the faithful. The earliest reliquaries date from the fifth century and have decorated covers of precious metals. They include early Christian caskets (coffers), such as the ivory Lipsanotheca of Brescia; a fifth-century gold cylinder from beneath the altar of the cathedral of Puli; and another gold cylinder from the cathedral of Grado. Similar small boxes, called staurothekes, are found in the Byzantine empire and subsequently in the west and usually contain a small cross inside of which was a relic believed to come from the actual cross of the crucifixion. The cross of Urban II (1092), preserved in the reliquary chapel of Badia della Trinità della Cava (monastery of Cava dei Tirreni, Salerno), contains such a relic.
During the Romanesque period, and corresponding to the crusades to Jerusalem, there was another surge of activity, during which relics of the saints and holy sites were brought back. Reliquaries in the form of body parts of saints—such as the arm reliquary (brachium) of Saint Magnus or the leg reliquary of Saint Theodore (Venice, Treasury of San Marco)—are similar to those found throughout the rest of the European continent. During the age of pilgrimage (c. 1100-1300) pilgrims traveled long distances to visit shrines where sacred relics were preserved. Often these pilgrims were suffering from incurable illnesses, or they were criminals sentenced by episcopal courts to make penitential pilgrimages. Their travel to distant lands thus became a Journey for spiritual, if not physical, healing, or a way of repenting for their sins and crimes. There was a strong traditional inclination toward sympathetic magic; thus proximity to sacred relics was believed to increase the likelihood of a cure or spiritual cleansing. Some reliquaries were placed where they could be touched or kissed by the devout. Whereas monumental settings are found at major sites in France (e.g., Saint Foi at Conques, Saint Sernin at Toulouse) and in Spain (e.g., Santiago de Compostela), reliquaries in Italy did not take on monumental form until the Gothic era, when they followed models in France, Spain, and Germany. One example is a casket reliquary of unknown origin in the treasury of Pope Boniface VIII (c. 1305) in the cathedral of Anagni.
Relics represent a wide range of objects: clothing, ornaments, bodily remains of saints, images, oil from the lamps at holy sites, and soil from sacred places. Other relics are identified with events in the life of Christ or of a saint. Relics include the wood believed to be from the True Cross, thorns believed to be from Christ's crown of thorns, the arms of Saint Blaise and Saint Magnus (in Venice), a finger of Saint Louis (in Bologna), and the foot of the tenth-century Saint Egbert (in Cologne). A monstrance or ostensorium held relics; monstrances, unlike other reliquaries, were sometimes carried in processions. Head reliquaries, usually in the round, were made of gold or silver, or a combination of metals; although most date from the Romanesque era, they continue to be found in the late fourteenth century. Among the reliquaries of medieval saints are those of Praxede (inscribed Pope Honorius III, 1216-1227) and Agnes (Nicholas III, 1277-1280), both in the Vatican Museum; and a late thirteenth-century head reliquary of Saint Galganus in Siena (in the cathedral museum), made for the abbey of San Galgano (near Siena). The reliquary of Saint Juliana (1376) is Umbrian in origin, and the finger reliquary of Saint Louis of Toulouse in the church of San Domenico (Bologna) was made in Italy by French artists for Charles II of Anjou. A whole bust reliquary of French origin of Saint Januarius (c. 1304-1306) is preserved in the treasury of the cathedral in Naples. A reliquary bust of Saint Agata was made for the cathedral of Catania (1376) by Giovanni di Bartolo; a silver reliquary for Saint Zenobius by Andrea Arditi survives in the cathedral in Florence (it is dated 1331). A Tuscan reliquary bust of Saint Donatus (dated 1346, by "Pietro and Paolo"):an be found in the Pieve di Santa Maria (Arezzo); another bust af this saint is found in the northern Italian town of Cividale [it is in the cathedral treasury and is signed by Donandino). Reliquary busts (now lost) of saints Peter and Paul, made for [he cathedral of Catania (1376) by Giovanni di Bartolo, were donated by Pope Urban V to Saint John Lateran. These examples attest to the proliferation of both the images and the religious practices surrounding them.
Celebration of relics of saints became widespread by the mid-thirteenth century. This is indicated by the large number of altars dedicated to a large number of saints, and by the emergence of pilgrimages to these locations. At this time, the containers for the relics began to assume monumental form. By the tenth century, portable altars usually contained relics, as did later small portable altarpieces, both of which were commonplace in the late Middle Ages. The container holding the remains of a saint is, significantly, called a casket. Caskets had the form of a rectangular box with a base and a pedimented lid; and by the late eleventh century they were often covered with fine metalwork and enamel. The casket, or châsse, with a gabled roof and finials became a common form at the beginning of the Gothic period, but it was not limited to the shape of a casket. After Saint Louis purchased the "crown of thorns" from Baldwin II, the Latin emperor of Constantinople (1239), it was made into a reliquary crown (c. 1264). Saint Louis was himself canonized in 1297, after establishing the feast of Corpus Christi. His own body was then put into reliquaries, some as small as liturgical crosses and glass monstrances. As macabre as these practices may seem today, such relics were required to establish the validity and efficacy of any Christian altar. In each church, the main altar and all subaltars were required to hold the relics of a sacred event, site, or saint.
Reliquary with a splinter of the Holy Cross. Anonymous, fourteenth century. Santa Croce, Florence. Photo: © Scala/Art Resource, N.Y.
Relics were sometimes incorporated into diptychs and triptychs, because this made them more portable from altar to altar—unlike the large shrines established during the Romanesque period. Diptychs and triptychs do not appear in Italy until the fourteenth century, when smaller devotional images were more commonplace than they had been in earlier times. A notable example of this kind of monument is the beautiful enamel reliquary of the Holy Corporal by Ugolino di Vieri (1337-1338) in the cathedral of Orvieto. This tabernacle reliquary was a collaborative effort of three artists in Orvieto— Ugolino (a Sienese), Viva di Lando, and Bartolommeo di Tommè(also known as Pizzino)—to commemorate the "miracle of Bolsena." It is designed in the form of a triptych in three registers; both sides of the panels present historiated scenes (from the life of Christ), terminating with gables at the top. This design creates an image similar to that of the cathedral facade, and to the Maestà by Duccio di Buoninsegna that once graced the high altar of the cathedral in Siena.
Other reliquary monuments also celebrate sacred objects: e.g., the reliquary of the Tree of the Cross, dating from c. 1360, in Lucignano (Museo Civico) in the Val di Chiana in Tuscany; the crozier in the cathedral treasury at Citta di Castello (Umbria); the reliquary of the Holy Thorn in San Lorenzo (Florence); and the reliquary of the Precious Blood (now at Montreuil-surMer, France, but Italian in origin).
Other Gothic shrines include the reliquary of Saint Chrysogonus (1326, in the treasury of the cathedral of Zara); the reliquary bust of Saint Ermagora (in the cathedral of Gori-zia); the reliquary of San Giovanni Gualberto, at the Vallombro-san monastery of Passignano; the shrine of Saint Simeon by Francesco da Sesto of Milan (1377—1380); and a shrine at Zara in the church of Saint Simeon.
Throughout the Middle Ages, the worship of reliquary objects was widespread and was often associated with miracles and miraculous cures. The fashioning of reliquaries and their placement on altars in medieval chapels and churches responded to an ancient human quest for healing and spiritual peace.
See also Ivory
DARRELL D. DAVISSON
Arnold, Steven. Reliquaries. Pasadena, Calif.: Twelvetree, 1984.
Braun, Joseph. Der christliche Altar in seiner geschichtlichen Entwicklung. Munich: Alte Meister Guenther Koch, 1924.
—. Die Reliquiare des christlichen Kultes und ihre Entwicklung. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1940.
Durandus, William. The Symbolism of Churches and Church Ornaments: A Translation of the First Book of the Rationale divinorum officiorum, trans. John Mason Neale and Benjamin Webb. London: Gibbings, 1906. (Reprint, New York: AMS, 1973.)
Heckscher, William S. "Relics of Pagan Antiquity in Medieval Settings." Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 1, 1937-1938, pp. 204-220.
Lasko, Peter. Ars Sacra, 800-1200. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972.
McCracken, Ursula. Liturgical Objects in the Walters Art Gallery. Baltimore, Md.: Walters Art Gallery, 1967.
Os, Henk W. van. The Art of Devotion in the Late Middle Ages in Europe 1300-1500, trans. Michael Hoyle. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994.
—. The Way to Heaven: Relic Veneration in the Middle Ages. Baarn: De Prom, 2000.
Sicari, Giovanni. Reliquie insigni e "corpi santi" a Roma. Rome: Alma Roma, 1998.
The Dominican Remigio dei Girolami (d. 1319) was a well-known teacher and preacher in Florence. He was a member of a family prominent in the wool guild and in municipal civic life. For many years, he was lector of theology in the great Dominican convent of Santa Maria Novella. In addition to his fame as a preacher, he also gained renown as a welcomer of visiting kings, cardinals, and other dignitaries; as an exhorter of civic officials to promote the common good; and as an orator at funerals and commemorative occasions for local and foreign notables. There were few types of public ceremony in Florence or in his order in which he was not at least occasionally a conspicuous participant. Although some of his closest relatives were exiled after the triumph of the Black Guelf faction in 1302, Remigio's own popularity with those in power seems to have continued. In 1313, answering a query from Sienese officials about his political soundness, the Florentine government called him "a leading father to our corporation (universitati)."
Remigio also wrote treatises on a rich variety of theological, philosophical, and political subjects, but these seem to have aroused little interest until the second half of the twentieth century, when a number of them were edited. Early in the century, G, Salvadori published some extracts from Remigio's public sermons and advanced the thesis that he must have been Dante's teacher at the time when Dante tells us he was frequenting the "schools of the religious." The theory remains unproved, but it has been widely accepted and is not improbable, for during this period Remigio was the principal lector of one of the two leading schools of the religious in Florence.
Whether he taught Dante or not, Remigics's teaching was important in the Florence of his own day, and it was most emphasized by the chronicle or necrology of his own convent. The entry about Remigio says that at the time of his death he had been a Dominican for fifty-one years and ten months, of which more than forty years had been spent as lector of Santa Maria Novella. Remigio was licensed in arts in Paris, entered the Dominican Order in the "first flower of his youth," and made such rapid progress, according to the necrology, that he became lector at Florence while still a deacon and before being ordained as a priest. He must have become a Dominican in Paris c. 1267-1268, since, as Panella (1982) has shown, he heard Saint Thomas Aquinas during Aquinas's last period of teaching there, from 1269 to 1272. Remigio served in many important positions in his order, and he was already preacher-general by 1281. He returned to Paris c. 1298 at the express wish of his convent to continue his theological studies and qualify for the magisterium. He had returned to Florence in August 1301 but soon went to Rome in the hope of receiving the magisterium from Pope Boniface VIII, but this ambition was frustrated by Boniface's sudden death. Remigio finally received the magisterium from a fellow Dominican, Pope Benedict XI, probably in 1304 at Perugia; we know that he preached and disputed there, and apparently he did not return to Florence again until 1306 or 1307. This seems to have been his last long absence from the city and the lectorate of Santa Maria Novella, though the necrology says that he gave up teaching and preaching a few years before his death (probably by 1316, when there was a new lector of theology at the convent) and devoted himself to composing and compiling religious books. This activity seems to have consisted in large part in the collecting and editing of his own works.
Remigio's works are contained in tour early fourteenth-century double-columned folio volumes and a later collection of Lenten sermons in the Conventi soppressi manuscript collection of the National Library of Florence, plus two copies of a commentary on the Song of Songs in the Laurentian Library, also in Florence. The four Conventi soppressi volumes are C.4.940, Remigio's treatises; D.1.937, sermons desanctis et festis; G.3.465, questions; and G.4.936, sermons de tempore, and those for special occasions. The last includes a section of prologues that Remigio preached at the beginning of his courses. Most are on books of Peter Lombard's Sentences or the Bible; but two deal with Aristotle, and one of these is devoted specifically to Aristotle's Ethics. Together they comprise some 2,700 folio sides. The four folio volumes, except for the first seventy-four leaves of C.4.940, are all written in the same highly abbreviated hand, with additions, annotations, and corrections by a second hand, evidently that of Remigio himself. Although a few copies of particular sermons have been found in manuscripts of non-Florentine provenance, Remigio's fame was mainly local, and knowledge of his writings was confined almost entirely to his own convent. But his writings must have been important there, for they furnished a rich repository of materials for preaching and for instruction in an important, if somewhat provincial, Dominican school. The purpose of the compilation of these volumes is confirmed by an elaborate web of cross-references, both in the text and in the margins, that connect works in the same volume and in different volumes. Many of the sermons, for example, are merely outlines but often contain references to allegorical and anecdotal material in other sermons and in treatises. As for the treatises (contained in Biblioteca Nazionale, Florence, MS Conventi Soppressi C.4.940), they do not cite the sermons, but they often cite and thereby reinforce each other.
Originality is not the most striking characteristic of Remigio's works. On the other hand, his concern with contemporary events and problems and his intense Florentine patriotism are often apparent. Although Remigio copied quantities of material from Aquinas in his treatise De peccato usure, its editor describes Remigio's analysis of the sin of usury as somewhat more flexible than Aquinas's. In a long digression in another treatise, Contra falsos ecclesie professores, Remigio tried valiantly, if with only parrial success, to find a middle ground between those who exalted and those who decried the claim of the papacy to universal temporal authority. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Remigio's thought was his effort to fuse the Augustinian concept of peace with the Aristotelian concept of the common good and apply them to the problem of faction in his own city, identifying them with the good of the commune. Several of his treatises and a number of his sermons are devoted to this theme. He also—like his fellow Dominican Ptolemy of Lucca—tried to inspire his fellow citizens through examples of civic virtue furnished by the heroes of the Roman republic, whose willingness to sacrifice themselves for their patria he (again like Ptolemy) did not hesitate to identify with the Christian virtue of caritas. Not to be a citizen, he affirmed with Aristotle, was not to be a man; and for Remigio, citizenship required the realization that the good of the part was subordinated to and included in the good of the whole. Of course, the common good of Christendom took precedence over the common good of Florence, and its head should be obeyed whenever possible; but if a command of the pope contravened the peace and well-being of the commune, even that command should be disregarded.
See also Dante Alighieri; Ptolemy of Lucca; Thomas Aquinas, Saint
Contra falsos ecclesie professores (fols. 154v-196v), ed. Filippo Tamburini. Rome, 1981.
De bono comuni (fols. 97r-106r), ed. M. C. De Matteis. In La "teologia politica comunale" de Remigio de' Girolami. Bologna, 1977 (text: 1-51).
De bono cornuni (fols. 97r-106r), ed. Emilio Panella. In "Dal bene comune al bene del comune: I trattati politici di Remigio dei Girolami nella Firenze dei Bianchi-Neri." Memorie Domenicane, 16, 1985, 1-198. (Text, pp. 123-168.)
De bono pads (fols. 106v-109r), ed. Charles T. Davis. In "Remigio de' Girolami and Dante: A Comparison of Their Conceptions of Peace." Studi Danteschi, 36, 1959, pp. 105-136. (Text, pp. 123— 136. See also editions by M. C. De Matteis, in La teologia . . ., text, pp. 53-71; and Emilio Panella, in "Dal bene comune ....," text, pp. 169-183.)
De contrarietate peccati (fols. 124v-130v).
De iustitia (fols. 206r-207r), ed. Ovidio Capitani. In "L'incompiuto Tractatus de iuscitia' di fra Remigio de' Girolami." Bullettino dell'Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medio Evo, 11, 1960, pp. 91-134. (Text, pp. 125-128.)
De misericordia (fols. 197r-206r), ed. A. Samaritani, in "La misericordia in Remigio de' Girolami e in Dante nel passaggio tra la teologia patristico-monastica e la scolastica." Analecta Pomposiana, 2, 1966, pp. 169-207. (Text, pp. 181—207.) De mixtione elementorum inmixto (fols. llv-17r).
De modis rerum (fols. 17v—70v). (Earlier version with Remigio's corrections in MS Conventi Soppressi E.7.938.)
De mutabilitate et inmutabilitate (fols. 131r-135v).
De peccato usure (fols. 109r-124v), ed. Ovidio Capitani. In "II 'De peccato usure' di Remigio de' Girolami." Studi Medievali, 6(2), 1965, pp. 537-662. (Text, pp. 611-660.)
Determinatio de uno esse in Christo (fols. 7r-llv), ed. Martin Grabmann. In Miscellania Tomista. Estudis Franciscans, 24. Barcelona, October-December 1924, pp. 257-277.
Determinatio utrum sit licitum vendere mercationes ad terminum (fols. 130v-131r), ed. O. Capitani. In "La 'venditio ad terminum' nella valutazione morale di S. Tommaso d'Aquino e di Remigio de' Girolami." Bullettino deU'Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medio Evo, 70, 1958, pp. 299-363. (Text, pp. 343-345.)
De via paradisi (fols. 207r-352v).
Divisio scientie (fols. lr-7r), ed. Emilio Panella. In "Un'introduzione alia filosofia in uno 'studium' dei Frati Predicatori del XIII secolo. 'Divisio scientie' di Remigio dei Girolami." Memorie Domenicane, n.s., 12, 1981, pp. 27-126. (Text, pp. 81-119.)
Questio de subiecto theologie (fols. 91r-95v), ed. Emilio Panella. In Il "De subiecto theologie" (1297—1299) di Remigio dei Girolami. Rome, 1982. (Text, pp. 4-71.)
Quodlibetum primum (fols. 71r-81v) and Ouodlibetum secundum (fols. 81v-90v), ed. Emilio Panella. In "I quodlibeti di Remigio." Memorie Domenicane, 14, 1983, pp. 1-149. (Text, pp. 66-146.) Speculum (fols. 135v-154v).
Extractio ordinata per alphabetum de questionibus tractatis. Biblioteca Nazionale, Florence, MS Conventi Soppressi G 3.465. (See Questio de duratione monitionum capitubrum Generalium et Provincialium, ed. Emilio Panella. In "Dibattito sulla durata legale delle 'Admonitiones,' " pp. 85-101; text, pp. 97-101. See also table of contents at the end of the manuscript, ed. J. D. Caviglioli and R. Imbach. In "Brève notice sur Extractio ordinata per alphabetum de Remi," Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum, 49, 1979, pp. 105-131; text, pp. 115-131.)
Postille super Cantica Canticorum. Biblioteca Laurenziana, Florence, MSS Conventi Soppressi 362 (fols. 88r-123r; 516, fols. 221r-266v). (The latter MS contains also Distinctiones for the letter A, fols. 266v-268v, ed. Emilio Panella. In "Per lo studio di fra' Remigio dei Girolami." Memorie Domenicane, n.s., 10, 1979, pp. 271-283.)
Sermones de diversis materiis. Biblioteca Nazionale, Florence, MS Conventi Soppressi G.4.936, fols. 247r-404v. (See scraps from these sermons, as well as Versus and Ritbmi placed by Remigio at the end of the codex, ed. G. Salvadori and V. Federici. "I Sermoni d'occasione, le sequenze e i ritmi di Remigio Girolami fiorentino." In Scritti pari di filologia a Ernesto Monaci, 455-508. Rome: Forzani, 1901. See also the sermons De pace, ed. Emilio Panella. In "Dal bene comune . . pp. 187-198. This section of MS Conv. Soppr. G.4.936 also contains prologues to courses on books of the Bible, Sentences, and Aristotle's Ethics, fols. 276v-345r. See Emilio Panella, ed. Prologus in fine sententiarum. In Il "De subiecto theologie," pp. 73-75. See also Emilio Panella, ed. Prologus super librum Ethicorum. In "Un'introduzione alla filosofia," pp. 122-124.)
Sermones de quadragesima. Biblioteca Nazionale, Florence, MS Conventi Soppressi G.7.939.
Sermones de sanctis et de festis. Biblioteca Nazionale, Florence, MS Conventi Soppressi D.1.937.
Sermones de tempore. Biblioteca Nazionale, Florence, MS Conventi Soppressi G.4.936, fols. lr—246v.
Davis, Charles T. "An Early Florentine Politica! T heorist: Fra Remigio de' Girolami," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 104, 1960, pp. 662-676. (Reprinted in Dante's Italy and Other Essays. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1984, pp. 198-223.)
Egenter, R. "Gemeinnutz vor Eigennutz: Die soziale Leitidee im Tractatus de bono communi des Fr. Remigius von Florenz." Scholastik, 9, 1934, pp. 79-92.
Grabmann, Martin. "Die Wege von Thomas von Aquin zu Dante." Deutsches Dante Jahrbuch, 9, 1925, pp. 1-35.
Maccarrone, Michele. " 'Potestas directa' e 'potestas indirecta' nei teologi del XII e XIII secolo." Miscellanea historiae pontificiae, 18, 1954, pp. 27-47.
Minio-Paluello, Lorenzo. "Remigio Girolami's De bono communi."' Italian Studies, 2, 1956, pp. 56-71.
Orlandi, Stefano. Necrologio di S. Maria Novella, 2 vols. Florence: Olschki, 1955, Vol. 1, pp. 35-36, 276-307.
Panelia, Emilio. "Per lo studio di fra Remigio dei Girolami (†1319)." Memorie Domenicane, n.s., 10, 1979.
—. "Il repertorio dello Schneyer e i sermonari di Remigio dei Girolami." Memorie Domenicane, n.s., 11, 1980, pp. 632-650.
—. "Remigiana: note biografiche e filologiche." Memorie Domenicane, n.s., 13, 1982, pp. 366-421.
—. "Nuova Cronologia Remigiana." Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum, 60, 1990, pp. 145-311.
Pugh Rupp, T. "Ordo caritatis: The Political Thought of Remigio dei Girolami." Dissertation, Cornell University, 1988. (Ann Arbor Microfilms.)
"Remigio Dei Girolami." Dictionnaire de spiritualité, 13, 1987, pp. 343-347.
Schneyer, Johannes Baptist. Repertorium der lateinischen Sermones des Mittelalters für die Zeit von 1150-1350, Vol. 5. Münster: Aschendorff, 1974, pp. 65-134.
CHARLES T. DAVIS
This article outlines the revenues garnered by the secular church and by imperial, royal, and civic governments from the late classical period to the early fifteenth century. Regardless of the entity collecting the revenues, several factors affected the nature, imposition, and collection of revenues: the specific and general needs of the authority, the power and stability of the authority, the mechanisms for collection and the means of coercion involved, the effectiveness and efficiency of record keeping and management of funds, the availability of coins in relation to the demand for monetary payments, the "incidence" of the imposition (i.e., on whom it ultimately fell), the general economic conditions (often dependent on annual crop yields) of the people on whom the demands fell, and attitudes (often traditional) toward the authority and the imposition. Revenues could be in kind or in cash, could be collected regularly or sporadically, and could be dedicated to specific or general uses.
Local parishes in Italy relied on support from patrons (including produce of dedicated land); faithful commoners' pious bequests and donations of goods, land, and money; and a share (generally one-fourth in the north and one-third in the south) of mandatory tithes. The Lombards practiced voluntary tithing for pious foundations, but the Franks made the tithe a virtual tax for the support of parochial and episcopal needs, including almsgiving. Though a tithe might not always have meant ten percent, nor was it always monetary, it was levied on just about everything medieval society produced, including grain, wine, oil, most farm animals, anything traded or sold, fishermen's catches, wool, wax, honey, and dairy products. Over time the portion set aside for episcopal use often fell into the hands of lay holders of church benefices or those holding mortgages of church properties, and it became a secular income flow that was soon being bequeathed, infeudated, and divided among lay and church authorities, all the while losing its sacramental purpose and nature. From early on, bishops and their cathedral chapters also enjoyed proprietary income from their estates, including rents and profits in kind and cash, gifts, and bequests. During the High Middle Ages they gained the right to a share of the property of those who died intestate, fees for certain ecclesiastical services, fines and penitential restitutions from the guilty, and customary "gifts" presented by civic authorities.
Papal revenues depended on three sources during the late classical period: subventions from the state, which dried up as Rome declined; voluntary gifts from the faithful, which included testamentary bequests and donations left on papal altars; and dues and rents from estates that had devolved to the bishops of Rome. With the creation of the papal state in the eighth century, popes adopted the Byzantine model of regalian rights (i.e., rights reserved to the sovereign) and imposed taxes, fines, tolls, and fees, especially related to judicial matters, throughout the territory they controlled. Also beginning in the eighth century, a number of monasteries gave "census" payments to the papacy, which guaranteed their freedom from lay interference or encroachment. Feudalism, developing from the ninth century on, brought with it service and in-kind dues from vassals of the papacy who held papal land as benefices. Regalian claims also expanded in the eleventh and twelfth centuries to "procurations," sums that were paid when new rectors arrived in a city or province; monetary payments in lieu of military service; and the focaticum, or hearth tax on households. Beginning in the tenth century, payments of cash tribute also resulted from papal c/aims to lordship over islands such as Sicily and England; the emerging kingdoms of Poland, Portugal, Aragon and Castile; and other regions and cities. At about the same time, England, Poland, and the Scandinavian kingdoms began paying "Peter's pence"—small sums that were collected by local priests and often skimmed from as they made their way to Rome. By the thirteenth century, Italian bankers came to be very important in facilitating these international transactions. Popes also came to rely on loans from these bankers.
Clerics also made payments that supported the papacy. Gracious gifts and voluntary subsidies for specific purposes, however, evolved into taxes and compulsory fees. A 2.5 percent tax on clerical incomes was established in 1199, initially to support a crusade. Prelates who assumed certain offices traditionally made a voluntary gift to the pope; this turned into a rigid custom that developed into a mandated "service" set at one-third of the income from the position for the first year. Later, those from whom a "service" was not required paid a similar "annate" instead; together, these sums constituted an important percentage of papal revenue. Popes also derived income from dioceses that were left without a bishop for a time ("first fruits from a vacancy"), from clergy who assumed a position for which they were not canonically qualified ("fruits wrongfully received"), and from the goods left by clerics who died intestate ("spoils"). Most of these developed during the thirteenth century as the popes' demand for revenue increased dramatically.
Both clerics and laypeople doing business with the papacy incurred chancery fees for the production of documents: a schedule from the 1250s lists eight set charges, and less than a century later 415 such fees were listed. Charges for "indulgences" began with a fee for drawing up the penitential document and were not truly abused until the Renaissance. Those seeking special favors from the head of the church—including indulgences, dispensation from certain requirements (e.g., marriage annulments), and absolution from egregious sins—paid "compositions" as a kind of pecuniary penance in addition to charges for the paperwork. Pilgrims to Rome, especially during jubilee years (beginning in 1300), contributed a good deal of cash, much of which found its way to the papal treasury. Fines and fees for judicial services, income from the seizure of heretics' property, and finally—at the end of the fourteenth century—the sale of church offices rounded out the sources of papal revenue during the medieval period. A growing demand for funds during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries vastly expanded the revenue base of the Roman and Avignonese papacy.
In the late Roman period, taxation was plagued by high rates, inefficient collection, and uneven incidence. The Ostrogothic king Totila insisted that all payments due be made directly to him, bypassing the landlords and imperial administrators. In areas controlled by the Byzantine empire, the basic Roman pattern continued until the end of the sixth century. High taxes on land, which supported the imperial military and administration, hurt both peasants and landlords; often, the landlords forfeited their holdings to the administrators. Other imperial imposts included poll taxes, capitation taxes, various tolls and user fees, judicial fees and fines, and rents on imperial property. In Sicily, heavy agricultural dues oppressed the peasantry, though the burden was alleviated, at least in part, by the lower rates and more efficient administration of land taxes after the Muslim conquest.
Lombard rulers drew income in cash and kind from their own properties and from landlords during visitations. The effective tax on land dropped, but Roman-style exactions in the form of commercial taxes continued, as did market, port, and import duties. Churches made loans and payments of tribute, and the Byzantine state paid tribute to the Lombard king as well. In general, the incidence of payments shifted away from the landowners and peasants.
The Carolingian kings followed Prankish custom in demanding regular provision of service and in-kind payments from the conquered Lombards, as well as tribute from the south. After 990, these payments dried up as imperial assets and fiscal rights were sold, given away, or usurped. The Salian emperors received irregular payments of a hearth tax, and later emperors benefited by selling regalian rights—such as appointing notaries, granting patents of nobility, and minting coins—to the emerging communal governments in northern Italy.
Norman kings in Sicily and southern Italy received revenues from both regalian and feudal sources. They relied on produce from their demesne and personal service and in-kind payments from vassals (when the vassals were not rebelling), as well as regalian rights to taxes on non-Christians; grain exports; and the use of ports, bridges, and bathhouses. To the kings—if they could collect it—also went treasure troves, remains from shipwrecks, and the property of those who had died intestate. The crown taxed markets and cattle, and heavily fined towns that rebelled. Under Emperor Frederick II, the state expanded monopolies to include mines and minerals, iron and steel, hemp and silk, salt, and dyes. Land, including church patrimony, was also heavily taxed at times, often as partial punishment for unrest on the part of nobles.
Urban northern Italy after 1000 gained in power and wealth as a result of a number of factors, including an impetus toward communes; a revival of Roman law, which helped expand and rationalize secular organization and administration; the weakness of imperial claims over the cities; and improvements in general demographic and economic conditions, which included a greater circulation of coins. Fiscal rights that cities either bought or usurped from the emperor or local nobility included tolls, customs duties, taxes on commerce, the salt monopoly, and guild dues. Governments of seaport cities like Genoa, Venice, and Pisa benefited first and most from expanding maritime trade. In Genoa between 1200 and 1275 the value of taxable maritime commerce doubled, and then it doubled again by 1293 to 5.5 million, about twice the revenue of the French crown. As early as the tenth century, Venice charged merchants a licence fee of 50 pounds for the right to purchase food from the Italian kingdom for sale in Venice, and payments in spices went to the doge for the privilege of operating commercially in Venice itself.
The right to levy the imperial hearth tax had been purchased or usurped by most cities by the twelfth century, but by 1250 most cities had replaced it with a tax on estimated wealth, variously known as the estimo, dazio, or lira. This was the main source of revenue for northern Italian cities until the early 1300s. It shifted the incidence of increasing taxation for war and administration to the wealthy, but the estimations, valuations (original cost, rental value, selling price), and collections were subject to corruption and error. By 1315, Florence had dropped this tax for citizens (though retaining it for subject communities) in favor of indirect imposts known as gabelle. By the later 1330s, these imposts accounted for 75 percent of state revenues, according to the chronicler Giovanni Villani. Florence had thirty gabelle, including four "major" ones on imports (the porte, or gate gabelle), salt, contracts, and retail wine sales. Between c. 1330 and 1380, revenue from the duties on pigs increased by 700 percent, and revenue from those on wine, eggs, and olive oil increased by 500 percent, despite a drop in population. This general picture holds true for many Tuscan and Lombard cities. These indirect charges hurt the poor and smaller merchants most, so governments tapped the resources of the rich through loans, both voluntary and forced.
Loans to civil governments began at least by the 1160s in Genoa and Venice. Urban Jewish communities and emerging banking houses were usually approached first. The earliest known "forced loan" was in Venice in 1207, although the practice was not regularized until 1362. Florence began using these prestanze in 1345. The public debt fund, or monte, grew rapidly, and soon shares or credits became negotiable financial resources that were bought and sold, usually at high discounts. Public debt rose from a debt-to-annual-income ratio of 1:2.5 in 1315 to 5:1 in 1370. Initial annual interest rates ranged well above ten percent, but in 1380 Florence capped its rate at five percent, well below the return on most commercial investments.
Each city government composed the package of imposts that seemingly best met its needs and resources at any one time, and these varied over time. San Gimignano used a general gabella, a judicial tithe on civil cases, fines, forced and voluntary loans, md, after 1276, consumption taxes that came to include wills, dowries, and official salaries. Lucca set three gabelle: one for expensive imports, one for cheaper imports, and one on wine. The Lucchese state held monopolies on salt and gaming tables and levied taxes on grinding flour, retail sales of bread and wine, prostitutes, contracts, rents, leases, moneylenders, and innkeepers. The authority to collect the taxes on many lesser sources of income was literally auctioned off to individual entrepreneurs who might be described as "tax farmers." These individuals bought one-year contracts under which they paid monthly installments to the state. This system generally worked well.
See also Banks and Banking
JOSEPH P. BYRNE
Boyd, Catherine E. Tithes and Parishes in Medieval Italy: The Historical Roots of a Modern Problem. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1952.
Bowsky, William. The Finance of the Commune of Siena. Oxford: Clarendon, 1970.
Brown, T. S. Gentlemen and Officers: Imperial Administration and Aristocratic Power in Byzantine Italy A.D. 554-800. Rome: British School at Rome, 1984.
Fiumi, Enrico. "L'imposta diretta nei comuni medioevali della Toscana." In Studi in onore di Armando Sapori, Vol. 1. Milan: Istituto Editoriale Cisalpino, 1957, pp. 327-353.
Grohmann, Alberto. L 'imposizione diretta nei comuni dell'Italia centrale el XIII secolo: La Libra di Perugia del 1285. Rome: École Frangaise de Rome, 1986.
Herlihy, David. Pisa in the Early Renaissance. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1958.
—. "Direct and Indirect Taxation in Tuscan Finance c. 1200-1400." In Finances et comptabilité urbaines du XIIIe au XVI siècle. Brussels: Pro Civitate, 1964, pp. 385-402.
Lunt, William. Papal Revenues in the Middle Ages. New York: Columbia University Press, 1934.
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Meek, Christine. "Public Policy and Private Profit: Tax Farming in Fourteenth-Century Lucca." In The Other Tuscany, ed. T. W. Blomquist and M. F. Mazzaoui. Kalamazoo, Mich.: Medieval Institute Publications, 1994, pp. 41-69.
Molho, Anthony. Florentine Public Finances in the Early Renaissance, 1400-1433. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971.
Pini, Antonio Ivan. "Gli estimi cittadini di Bologna dal 1296 al 1329." Studi Medievale,
Series 3(18), 1977, pp. 111-147.
Rutenburg, Victor I. "Sistema di tassazioni e credito pubblico a Firenze nei secoli XI-XV." In Hochfinanz, Wirtschafträume, Innovationen, 3 vols., ed. Uwe Bestmann et al. Trier: Auenthal, 1987, Vol. 1, pp. 17-34.
Santoro, Caterina. La politica finanziaria dei Visconti: Documenti, Vol. 1, Sett. 1329-agosto 1385. Milan: Giuffrè, 1976.
Solmi, Arrigo. L'amministrazione finanziaria del regno italico nell'alto medioevo. Pavia: Tipografia Editore, 1932.
Takayama, Hiroshi. The Administration of the Norman Kingdom of Sicily. New York: Brill, 1993.
See Liberal Arts
In the fourteenth century, Ralph of Tongres said that all nations conformed to the Roman antiphonal with respect to the offices of the temporale, but that Italian churches conformed to the tanctorale to a greater extent because they allowed very few proper offices for saints. In making this statement, Ralph was surely referring not to the proper offices for saints that were common to all uses, early and late, but to newly composed proper offices for saints and feasts, mostly of the later Middle Ages, that characterized the Proper of Saints in most of Europe. I he majority of those offices were in poetry, giving rise to the term "rhymed office" or "versified office."
A casual perusal and even a more systematic search of Italian sources for versified offices would seem to confirm Ralph's observation. The thirteenth-century reforms of the Roman liturgy in issociation with the newly founded Franciscan order had brought about a briefer, concise liturgy suitable for busy Roman administrators as well as for itinerant friars. Quite quickly books within Rome, and by the fourteenth century books in other parts of Italy, were made to conform with the Roman-Franciscan use. Indeed, non-conforming manuscripts were often destroyed. Thus the liturgical books that surface most readily in Italy are those of the Roman Curia, virtually synonymous with Franciscan use. These contain very few rhymed offices other than those of the Franciscan order itself.
Here, a misapprehension must be corrected, A relatively recent survey of rhymed offices in general stated that some 700 rhymed offices are to be associated with the Franciscans. Detailed cataloging and identification have yet to be carried out, but the most recent general work (as of this writing) on the topic—the present author's catalog of some 1,500 late medieval offices— suggests that this number is exaggerated some tenfold. But even the seventy rhymed offices probably associated with the Franciscans are hard to find. Most of course have no Italian connections and would not appear in Italian books of any kind.
Thus Ralph's statement seems to be correct. But the tools for accurate investigation have until very recently not been available, The new catalog of late offices just mentioned (although still presenting a European overview rather than local detail) allows a more accurate picture to be presented. A full accounting and inventory of liturgical manuscripts in Italy would make the task easier: some of the sources, especially the large chorali, are (or were) accessible only to art historians, for example.
A rhymed office consists of thirty to forty items: these are the items of the services—principally vespers, matins, and lauds—that are sung to plainsong (loosely known as Gregorian chant), namely, antiphons, invitatories, responsories, and their verses. From the twelfth century, using regularly rhymed and accentual poetry, these were widespread across the whole of Europe until the Council of Trent removed them. Before the twelfth century, new offices were usually written in prose, rhymed prose, or prose structured by rhyme, meter, and other rhetorical devices in various irregular schemes.
Deciding what is an Italian rhymed office is no easy task. The office for Francis of Assisi, for example, was written (possibly in Paris) by an official attached to the chapel of Louis IX; Anthony of Padua (whose office is modeled on that for Francis) was Portuguese by birth; the office for Catherine of Siena is modeled on that for Saint Dominic, which was probably written by a Spaniard. Yet all three are obviously saints important for Italy and Italian liturgy. Nicholas, a universally venerated saint, was bishop of Bari. Do all offices for him qualify? Briefly, the criteria for "nationality" of an office are allusions to specific places and events in the texts; place of use of the manuscripts; and place of the cult, relics, and veneration.
On the basis of these criteria, rhymed offices, in fact, seem no less common—numerically—in Italy than elsewhere in Europe. A simple count of offices associated with Italy or Italian saints discloses more than seventy offices, including those mentioned already and a set of twenty-one written for Milan by Origo Scaccabarozzi, and some twenty saints for whom there is an office with Italian connections. A good many of the "obviously" Italian offices are for saints quite local to their community; often, such a saint is the patron of the city in question— e.g., Ansanus of Siena, Petronius of Bologna, and Zeno of Verona. This emphasis on local saints mirrors the situation elsewhere but seems more prevalent in Italy.
Nothing obvious distinguishes Italian offices from those found elsewhere: the textual and musical styles seem consistent with general late medieval poetic and musical practice. But that practice, as it applies to both liturgical poetry and music, has yet to be investigated and established in detail, and all assessments must for the moment be purely subjective and based on incomplete evidence.
There are very dated editions and discussions of the offices for Francis of Assisi and Anthony of Padua, and there is an edition of the office for the patron of Volterra, Iuvenal of Fos-sano (Damilano 1979). No general survey of Italian offices exists as of this writing. Much general information can, however, be extracted from the catalog of late medieval offices in Hughes (1994).
ANDREW HUGHES
Damilano, Piero, ed. "L'antico ufficio ritmico di s. Giovenale vescovo di Narni." In Quaderno, Vol. 9. Fossano: Fondazione F. Sacco, 1979.
Hughes, Andrew. Late Medieval Liturgical Offices (Resources for Electronic Research): Texts. Subsidia Mediaevalia, 23. Toronto: Pontifical Instituce for Mediaeval Studies, 1994.
The Rialto in Venice is the area and market located at the first bend in the Grand Canal. Rivoalto ("deep water") originally referred to the entire archipelago of islands that later became Venice. The market district appropriated the name, since it was situated on the Canale de Rivo Alto, or Grand Canal. Merchants began to gather on the west shore of the canal bend as early as the late tenth century. Over the course of the next two centuries, the Rialto market became the bustling hub for Venetian export and import traffic. The first wooden bridge was probably built in the 1220s.
See also Venice
THOMAS F. MADDEN
Cessi, Roberto, and Annibale Albert!. Rialto: L'isola, ilponte, il mercato. Bologna: Zanichelli, 1934.
Schulz, Juergen. "Urbanism in Medieval Venice." In City States in-Classical Antiquity and Medieval Italy: Athens and Rome, Florence and Venice, ed. Anthony Molho, Kurt Raaflaub, and Julia Emler,. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1991.
The chronicler Riccardo da San Germano (c. 1165-c. 1244) was closely connected with the abbey of Monte Cassino and the court of the emperor Frederick II. Though not a churchman, being a notary by profession, Riccardo was almost certainly educated as a lay student at the monastery of Monte Cassino under Pietro da Insula, its abbot from 1174 on.
Riccardo's chronicle survives in two versions. In its original form it was probably intended to be a continuation of Annales casinenses, the annals of Monte Cassino, having been commissioned by Stefano Marsicano before Stefano became abbot of the monastery in 1215. It was begun in all likelihood between 1211 and 1215, while Riccardo was at the papal court in Rome, and was later expanded during his service as an imperial administrator into a more general history of the kingdom of Sicily between 1189 and 1243. Together with his brother, Giovanni, Riccardo is recorded as an official of Frederick II's government between 1222 and 1242, but he also continued over these years to act as a notary for the abbey of Monte Cassino. Despite his employment by the emperor, Riccardo is not entirely uncritical of Frederick in his account of events: he reserves his admiration for Pope Innocent III and King William II of Sicily. Still, he is critical of attempts by the papacy to override secular authority, retaining his attachment to the traditions of the Norman kingdoms of Sicily and avoiding commitment to the pro-papal and pro-imperial parties as they emerged at the end of his life. An interesting feature of his chronicle is the interpolation of verse passages, generally dirges on the deaths of great men or laments over tragic events such as the defeat of the crusaders at Damietta.
See also Frederick II Hohenstaufen
LOUIS GREEN
Ryccardi de Sancto Germano notarii. Chronica, ed. C. A. Garufi. In Rerum italicarum scriptores, Vol. 7(2). Bologna: Zanichelli, 1936-1938. (New edition.)
The poet Ricciardo da Battifolle (fourteenth century), according to the late nineteenth-century critic and poet Giosuè Carducci (1862), was also known as Roberto. He was the brother of Carlo di Poppi, and was a member of an illustrious family—the Conti Guidi from the Casentino region of Tuscany. Corsi (1969) cautiously follows Carducci's opinion and maintains that Ricciardo Roberto was a prominent military figure who corresponded with Petrarch (Seniles, 6 and 7) and Coluccio Salutati (Epistolario, 2.xv). He was friendly with Simone Serdini, who sent him a canzone, Domine, né in furore tuo arguas me. Roberto is also mentioned in Giovanni Gherardi's Paradiso degli Alberti. If Ricciardo is the same person as Roberto, he is renowned as the captain of the Florentine army that captured San Miniato in 1370, during the campaign against the Visconti, and he died in 1374. However, Lanza (1975) disagrees with Carducci and Corsi for chronological reasons and identifies the poet as the conte Ricciardo come buon compagno who is mentioned in il Za's popular poem Buca di Montemorello.
Ricciardo is a Petrarchan poet, as can be seen in the sonnet Benché ignorante sia, i'pur mi penso, which he sent to Petrarch. In this poem, Ricciardo praises the courage and wisdom of the ancients and underscores his own sense of isolation and dissatisfaction with the present age. His only solace is in being a contemporary of Petrarch, whose eloquent verse provides him with spiritual guidance in the journey of life. Petrarch responded with the sonnet Conte Ricciardo, quanto più ripenso. All of Ricciardo's poems deal with the theme of love. Two sonnets, Lieta finestra, aventuroso loco and Amor parla con meco e dice: —Or mira, stand out for their lighthearted, vibrant, sincere representations of the poet's love for a woman named Filippa.
See also Petrarca, Francesco; Salutati, Coluccio; Serdini, Simone
DARIO DEL PUPPO
Carducci, Giosuè, ed. Rime di Cino da Pistoia e d'altri del secolo XIV. Florence: Barbera, 1862, p. 424.
Corsi, Giuseppe, ed. Rimatori del Trecento. Turin: UTET, 1969, pp. 419-426.
Lanza, Antonio, ed. Il Paradise degli Alberti di Giovanni Gherardi da Prato. Rome: Editrice Salerno, 1975, p. 79. (See also note.)
Mehus, Lorenzo, ed. Ambrosii Traversarti Generalis Camaldulensium aliorumque ad tpsum et ad alio de eodem Ambrosio Latinae Epistolae .... Florence: Cesareo, 1759.
Ricciardo (a. 1314), a doctor of canon and civil law, is thought to have joined the papal chancery after a career teaching canon law at the University of Naples, He acted as vice-chancellor under Pietro da Piperno. In 1296, Pope Boniface VIII named him to work with Bérengar Frédol and Guillaume de Mandegout on the Liber sextus decretalium. Following the completion of this project, the pope named Ricciardo a cardinal. Ricciardo fled Anagni during the attack on Pope Boniface but remained active in the curia until his death. Ricciardo refused to verify any miracles attributed to Celestine V during the canonization inquiry inaugurated by Clement V.
See also Boniface VIII, Pope
THOMASHOMAS M. IZBICKI
Boase, T. S. R. Boniface VIII. London: Constable, 1933.
Riccobaldo da Ferrara (b. 1245 or 1246) was a compiler ot chronicles of world history. He was born in Ferrara, became a notary, and styled himself magister or dominus. As an exile in Ravenna, he read a book in the capitular library of that city; this book inspired him to undertake his own lifework: Jerome's translation of Eusebius's Chronicle. Riccobaldo decided not only to make Eusebius's work known but to bring its treatment of events down to his own day. He thus represented a much older tradition than that of Vincent of Beauvais, the Dominican who inspired Riccobaldo's contemporaries Benzo d'Alessandria and Giovanni Mansionario. For the rest of his life, about twenty years or so, in Ravenna, Ferrara, and finally in Padua, Riccobaldo would devote himself to his chronological labor.
The first product of his industry was Pomerium Ravennatis ecclesie, seu Historia universalis ab anno circiter 700-1297, written in Ravenna between 1297 and 1300. On returning to Ferrara in 1308, he wrote Compendium Romane historie. In the second decade of the Trecento, he lived in Padua and wrote a two-volume treatment of Roman history (in the broadest sense), apparently entitled Historie, with the break between the two volumes coming at the inception of Caesar's political life.
To many scholars, Riccobaldo is most intriguing for his influence on Dante, especially the episode in the Inferno (Canto 27, verses 67-111, 115) involving Guido da Montefeltro and Boniface VIII.
See also Boniface VIII, Pope; Chronicles; Dante Ahghieri; Giuido da Montefeltro
JOSEPH R. BERRIGAN
Riccobaldo. Compilatio Chronologica. Rerum Itahcarum Scriptores, 9. Milan, 1726.
—. Compendium romanae historiae, ed. A. Teresa Hankey. Fonti per la Storia d'ltalia, 108. Rome: Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medio Evo, 1984.
—. Riccobaldi Ferrariensis Compilatio chronologica, ed. A. T. Hankey. Fonti per la Storia dell'Italia Medievale, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, 4. Rome: Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medio Evo, 2000.
Berrigan, Joseph R. "Riccobaldo and Giovanni Mansionano as Historians." Manuscripta, 30, 1986, pp. 215-223.
Campana, Augusto. "Riccobaldo da Ferrara." In Enciclopedia dantesca, Vol. 4. Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1984, pp. 908-910.
Hankey, Teresa. "Riccobaldo of Ferrara, Boccaccio, and Domenico di Bandino." Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 21, 1958, pp. 208-226.
Richard I, count of Aversa and prince ot Capua (d. 1078), was [he nephew of Rainulf, the first count of Aversa. By the mid-L'leventh century, the conquests of the Normans were proceeding in all directions. Humphrey de Hauteville continued the conquests of his brothers, William and Drogo; Robert Guiscard, aided by his younger brother Roger, moved southward into Calabria; and Richard of Aversa commenced his policy of expansion into the territories of Gisulf of Salerno, the duke of Gaeta, and the count of Aquino.
After the mysterious disappearance of Herman, a minor who was the son of Rainulf II of Aversa, Richard, who had been Herman's tutor, took over control of the county. From this base he was able to expand: first he came to the assistance of Gisulf II, the heir of the murdered Guaimar V (1052), and helped him to regain the principality of Salerno; second, he moved northward to regain control of Capua and to reinforce Gisulf's authority there. In 1053, Richard was one of the military leaders at the battle of Civitate, which resulted in the imprisonment of Pope Leo IX (r. 1049-1054); and it was as leader of this army that he moved against the usurpers of Capua. At this point, Richard, feeling that he had not been adequately compensated by Gisulf II, broke with him and joined the forces of Amalfi against Salerno. But Richard, determined to capture Capua, laid siege to the city and abandoned the siege only when Pandulf V of Capua gave him a considerable sum of money. In 1507, when Pandulf V died and was succeeded by his son Landulf VI, Richard again took up the siege of Capua and this time forced an acknowledgment of his overlordship. This conquest was formally legitimized by Pope Nicholas II (r. 1058—1061) at the synod of Melfi (1059) in gratitude for Richard's support against the antipope Benedict X (1058). Shortly afterward, Richard also obtained an acknowledgment of his overlordship over Gaeta.
Having secured a base in Capua and Caeta, Kichard was tree to enter into the politics of the time. From 1061 to 1063, for example, he found himself protector of Pope Alexander II (r. 1061-1073). At this time, Richard asserted his claim of suzerainty over all the petty nobles whose lands bordered his own, and in collaboration with Desiderius of Monte Cassino he tried to build up a state powerful enough to ensure peace among the warring nobility of the south. He was becoming too powerful for Alexander II, whose fears were confirmed in 1066, when Richard invaded the papal territories. At this point, the enemies of the pope were eager to proclaim Richard emperor. Although Alexander II and Richard were reconciled, it had become clear that courting the favor of the Normans was a dangerous policy on the part of the papacy. Pope Gregory VII (r. 1073-1085), Alexander's successor, pursued an aggressive anti-Norman policy when papal territory (Benevento) was attacked. Richard was excommunicated at the Council of Rome in March 1078 and died the next month on 5 April.
See also Aversa; Conrad II; Gregory VII, Pope; Normans; Rainulf I, Count of Aversa; Sergius IV, Duke of Naples
ANTHONY P. VIA
Chalandon, Ferdinand. Histoire de la domination normande en Italie et en Sicilie, 2 vols. Paris: Librairie A. Picard et Fils, 1907.
Loud, G. A. The Age of Robert Guiscard: Southern Italy and the Norman Conquest. Essex: Pearson Education, 2000.
The witty and talented Richard of Venosa (early thirteenth century) is known solely from his Latin poem De Paulino et Polla {On Paulinus and Polla), dedicated to the emperor Frederick II. This poem, in elegiac distichs, has 1,140 lines and is thus the longest extant specimen of "elegiac comedy," a type of dramatically charged humorous verse narrative whose earliest and most famous exemplars are known or thought to come from twelfth-century France.
In the opening or the poem, Richard identities himself as a judge whose town of origin is Venosa, part of the mainland portion of Frederick's kingdom of Sicily. Venosa is also the scene of the action until the very end, when the amusingly told series of increasingly serious events is resolved at an unspecified location by "Duke Rainald," governor of the kingdom. This person's identification with Rainald of Urslingen, who was imperial vicar in 1228-1229 and was formally disgraced in 1231, provides an approximate date of composition. Richard's assimilation and creative reuse of ancient and modern classics, his choice of genre, and his skill at writing quantitative Latin verse in an antique manner mark him as someone of considerable literary culture. Also apparent are his higher education generally, his legal training, and his awareness of some of the less admirable aspects of human behavior.
The poem recounts how Polla, an elderly woman, asks the lawyer Fulco to arrange a marriage between her and an even older man, his acquaintance Paulinus. After some discussion, Fulco accepts the commission, and in attempting to fulfill it he falls prey to a series of mishaps ranging from slapstick to seriocomic. In addition to damage caused by his domestic animals (cat, dog, and pig), his misfortunes include ruining his bed by accidentally spilling oil all over the straw, falling into an open sewer and not being able to get himself out, and being tried and sentenced to death for a crime he did not commit. Two versions of the ending exist. In one of these—an abbreviated version— Fulco's future and that of the proposed marriage are left in doubt, although a two-line happy ending has been added in some manuscripts. In the other version—which is presumably the original—the duke quashes the local proceeding but forbids the marriage, since, as Fulco has admitted, no offspring can come of it; and Fulco is condemned to a severe beating for promoting an illicit union.
Embedded in the narrative and giving the work most of its length are numerous passages of dialogue. These usually take the form of relatively brief, sententious exchanges dealing with two sides of an issue. The issues themselves are pragmatic and chiefly ethical; the transitions are clever and often involve amusing situations. There is also an element of social satire. The poem's pedagogically attractive combination of moral content in an entertaining and well-written vehicle seems to have been the key to its survival. Thus quotations from it occur in the Compendium moralium notabilium (c. 1300—1310, an ethical florilegium) of the Paduan judge Jeremy (Hieremias, Geremia) of Montagnone; and the earliest complete manuscript (also from the first half of the fourteenth century) has thorough interlinear and marginal glosses indicative of schoolroom use. Of at least eleven later manuscripts, several are similarly glossed.
See also Latin Literature
JOHN B. DILLON
Pittaluga, Stefano, ed. Riccardo da Venosa. De Paulino et Polla. In Commedie latine del XII e XIII secolo, ed. Ferruccio Beruni, Vol. 5. Genoa: Istituto di Filologia Classica e Medievale dell'Università di Genova, 1986, pp. 81-227, 233-235. (See bibliography.)
Doglio, Federico. "Rapporti fra le diverse esperienze drammatiche europee nel Medio Evo: La commedia elegiaca, ambito italiano." In Il teatro scomparso: Testi e spettacoli fra il X e il XVIII secolo. Immagini alio Specchio, 16. Rome: Ente dello Spettacolo, 1990, pp. 161-181.
Monaco, Giuseppe Giovanni. Il libellus di Riccardo da Venosa: L'eroismo borghese e la nascita della comoedia humana. Naples: Societa Editrice Napoletana, 1984. (Includes transcription and photographic reproduction of one of the fifteenth-century documents: Vallicellianus C 91, ff. 45r-67v.)
Pepe, Gabriele. "Una farsa del secolo XIII in latino." Archivum Romanicum, 19, 1935, pp. 387-396. (Reprinted as Appendix 4 in Gabriele Pepe. Lo stato ghibellino di Federico II, 2nd ed. Bari: Laterza, 1951, pp. 176-187.)
Pittaluga, Stefano. "L'abito buono di Riccardo da Venosa." In Il paese di Cortesia: Omaggio a Federico II nell'Ottavo Centenario della nascita, ed. Paolo A. Rossi, Ida Li Vigni, and Stefano Zuffi. Genoa: Erga Edizioni, n.d., pp. 70-82. (Possibly 1995.)
Richard (1157-1199), the third child of King Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, succeeded to the English throne at his father's death on 16 July 1189 and immediately began raising money for a crusade, which became the central focus of his life. Richard left England on 12 December 1189 and sailed from Marseille for the east on 7 August 1190. On his journey to the Levant, he spent the period from 13 August 1190 to 10 April 1191 in Italy and Sicily—a greater time, in fact, than he spent in England during the ten years of his reign as its king. Richard stopped at Genoa, Portofino, Pisa, Piombino, Ostia, Naples, and Salerno, among other cities in the peninsula, but he declined an invitation from the pope to visit Rome. At Messina, Richard became involved in a confrontation with King Tancred of Sicily over property that Richard claimed belonged rightfully to his sister, Joan. In a brief campaign, Richard captured Messina and held it for ransom until Tancred finally bowed to his demands.
Arriving in the Holy Land at the beginning of June 1191, Richard soon took control of the siege of Acre. He spent sixteen months campaigning in the east and then set out for England in October 1192. On his return journey he was captured and held for ransom, first by Duke Leopold of Austria and then by Emperor Henry VI. He was released in 1194 after payment of a substantial ransom; he then spent the next five years in struggles with King Philip II of France over territories that both claimed and neither would concede to the other. Richard died, still fighting, on 6 April 1199.
See also Crusades
JAMES A. BRUNDAGE
Brundage, James A. Richard Lion Heart. New York: Scribner, 1974.
Gillingham, John. Richard the Lionheart. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1978.
Landon, Lionel. The Itinerary of King Richard I. London: Printed for the Pipe Roll Society by J. W. Ruddock, 1935.
Norgate, Kate. Richard the Lion-Heart. London: Macmillan, 1924. (Reprint, New York, 1969.)
Flavius Ricimer (Count Ricimer, d. 472), was of varied royal barbarian ancestry, being the son of a Visigothic mother and a Suevic father. He pursued a military career and served under Aetius. As a military count, he defeated a Vandal attack on Sicily in 456. During the period 456—472, acting in the capacity of patrician and supreme master of soldiers, he was the virtual ruler of the western empire, making and unmaking emperors at will. In 456, he was involved in the fall of the emperor Eparchius Avitus. In 457, he was instrumental in the accession of the energetic emperor Majorian (r. 457-461), but in 461 he had Majorian deposed and subsequently executed at Dertona. Later that year, he had the nonentity Libius Severus declared emperor in Rome; Severus occupied the throne until his unlamented death in 465.
The west then remained without an emperor, but with Ricimer effectively in control, until 467, when an easterner, Anthemius, arrived with an army and was made emperor. In an attempt to reach an accord with the new emperor, Ricimer married Anthemius's daughter Alypia. Nevertheless, quarreling soon broke out, culminating in the murder of Anthemius, in 472, by Ricimer's nephew, the Burgundian Gundobad. Ricimer then had the senator Olybrius proclaimed western emperor. Ricimer died shortly thereafter, and his influential position was then occupied by Gundobad.
Ricimer was one of several barbarians who took advantage of the troubled times in the west to attain great influence and high office, but whose pursuit of essentially personal ambitions contributed to the eventual disintegration of the west.
See also Aëtius, Flavius
RALPH MATHISEN
O'Flynn, John M. Generalissimos of the Western Roman Empire. Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 1983.
Oost, Stewart I. "D. N, Libius Severus P. F. Aug." Classical Philology, 65, 1970, pp. 228-240.
Papini, A. M. Ricimero: L'agonia dell'impero romano d'Occidente. Milan, 1959.
Scott, L. R. "Antibarbarian Sentiments and the 'Barbarian' General in Roman Imperial Service: The Case of Ricimer." In Actes VIIe Congrès FIEC de la Federation Internationale des Associations d'Etudes Classiques, Vol. 2. Brussels, 1984, pp. 23-33.
Vassili, Lucio. "Il comes Agrippino collaboratore di Ricimero." Athenaeum, 14, 1936a, pp. 175-180.
—. "La figura di Nepoziano e l'opposizione ricimeriana al governo imperiale di Maggioriano." Athenaeum, 14, 1936b, pp. 56-66.
Rimini was the ancient coastal city of Ariminum, situated on the border between Emilia and Umbria. It was the end of Via Flaminia and the beginning of Via Aemilia, marked by the Arch of Augustus, the earliest surviving Roman triumphal arch (27 B.C.). Its prehistoric background included elements of Villanovian, Umbrian, and Etruscan culture. In 268 B.C., it was consolidated as a Roman colony. From the second Punic war until the late empire, Rimini was a major Roman military and maritime base. The Christian church in Rimini can be dated to its first known bishop, Stemnio (313). After the Byzantine reconquest, the city became a part of the Exarchate (552). Following rule by the Lombards and conquest by the Franks, it was part of the Donation of Pepin to the papacy.
The earliest forms of communal government appear to date from the eleventh century, and the first consuls are documented in 1158. Frederick I Barbarossa recognized the city and its rights over its surrounding territory. In 1295, after a series of struggles between the Guelf Malatesta family and the Ghibelline Omodei and Parcitadi families, the Malatesta established their rule—or signoria—in the city, under Malatesta da Verrucchio (d. 1312), with the assistance of his sons Paolo Bello, Gianciotto, and Malatestino dall'occhio ("one-eyed"). In the Divine Comedy, Dante mentions these historical figures and severely criticizes them for their violent tactics. First, Dante describes the murder of Francesca da Polenta (from Ravenna) and Paolo Malatesta by her husband Gianciotto, Paolo's brother (Inferno, 5.82-142). Then he condemns the premeditated murder of the Ghibelline Montagna dei Parcitadi by the Malatesta family (Inferno, 27.46-48) as part of their plan for consolidating their power in Rimini. Finally, Dante refers to Malatestino's treacherous drowning of two civic representatives from Fano as part of the expansionist designs of the Malatesta family on other cities in the area (Inferno, 28.70-90). One further note on Dante's connection with Rimini is that his strong antipapal political views, as expressed in Monarchia, come under harsh attack by the Dominican Guido Vernani da Rimini in the treatise Tractatus de reprobatione Monarchiae (1333-1334).
The Malatesta lordship was recognized anew by the city council in 1334 and received recognition from the papacy in 1355 as a vicariate over Rimini, Pesaro, Fano, and Fossombrone. The continuing Malatesta court became a center of cultural patronage, reaching a peak in the days of Sigismondo Pandolfo in the fifteenth century. The seriousness of its intellectual interests may be measured by the fact that Pandolfo Malatesta was a friend and patron of Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca) and that a century later, in the early Renaissance, Sigismondo commissioned Leon Battista Alberti to design the celebrated Tempio Malatestiano.
The splendor of the Tempio tends to distract attention from the medieval edifices in Rimini, which include the Palazzo dell'-Arengo (Palatium Comunis), a Romanesque-Gothic structure begun in 1204; and the Palazzo del Podesta (Palatium Novum), built in the 1330s. There are also several fine medieval churches, such as Sant'Agostino (1247), with its fourteenth-century fresco cycle, and the church of the Senates (Santa Maria dei Servi, 1317); the latter, however, has been greatly altered over the centuries.
See also Rimini, School of
JOHN W. BARKER AND CHRISTOPHER KLEINHENZ
Cassell, Anthony K. Dante and Vernani: Power and Spite in the Monarchia Controversy. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2003.
Larner, John. The Lords of Romagna: Romagnol Society and the Origins of the Signorie. London: Macmillan, 1965.
Matteini, Nevio. Il più antico oppositore politico di Dante: Guido Vernani da Rimini: Testo Critico del "De Reprohatione Monarchiae. " Il Pensiero Medievale Collana di Storia della Filosofia, Series 1(6). Padua: CEDAM, 1958.
Pasolini, Pier Desiderio. I tiranni di Romagna e i papi nel Medio Evo. Imola: Tip. D'Ignazio Galeati, 1888.
Tonini, Luigi. Della storia civile e sacra riminese, Vol. 2. Rimini: Tipi Orfanelli e Grandi, 1856.
Vasina, Augusto. I Romagnoli fra autonomie cittadine e aecentramento papale nell'età di Dante. Florence: Olschki, 1965.
—. Romagna medievale. Ravenna: Longo, 1970. (See especially pp. 249-316.)
Zama, Piero. I Malatesti. Faenza: Fratelli Lega, 1956.
In the late Middle Ages, Rimini was a major center for the production of fresco and panel painting. Although the output of the school of Rimini came largely during the first half of the fourteenth century, its artists are recorded in local archives from 1292 until the late Trecento. Modern scholars have attempted to arrange the substantial body of surviving work, most of which is anonymous, into stylistic groups, each group representing a separate artistic personality; a few signed and dated works make it possible to attach names to some of these personalities and to establish approximate dates for their activity. The task of organizing the material is complicated by its homogeneity, and there is considerable disagreement among the critics.
The most important artists whose names are known today are Giuliano da Rimini, Pietro da Rimini, Giovanni da Rimini, and Giovanni Baronzio. Giuliano signed an altarpiece that was once in the duomo at Urbania, near Urbino, and is now in the Gardner Museum in Boston; this panel also carries the date 1307 and is the earliest dated work from the school. Giuliano was dead by 1346; it is likely that he is the same Giuliano da Rimini who worked in Padua in 1324, along with Pietro da Rimini. They signed and dated an altarpiece (now lost) that was once in the church of the Eremitani in Padua. Some detached frescoes in the civic museum come from the Eremitani and may be attributed to this team of artists. There is a signed crucifix by Pietro da Rimini at Urbania, A painter named Giovanni signed and dated another crucifix at Mercatello. The date, which is indistinct, is now read as 1309 or 1314 (not 1345, as it was previously read). This Giovanni is apparently the same artist whose name appears on Riminese archival documents of 1292 and 1300, but he is not the Giovanni Baronzio who signed the dated polyptych of 1345 in the National Gallery of the Marches at Urbino. Little more is known of Baronzio, except that he had died by 1362. Baronzio is the last major artist of the Riminese school whose name is known—if indeed he is a major artist, for by his time the school appears to have entered into a decline.
Approximately 100 paintings on panel by the Riminese artists have been identified. Among the best and most characteristic are rectangular altarpieces and small portable diptychs, divided into zones most often decorated with scenes of Christ's passion, and frequently now dismembered. In addition, there are numerous fresco cycles. Of these, the most extensive are stories of Joachim, the Virgin, and the infancy of Christ, in the Cappella del Campanile, SantAgostino, Rimini (heavily damaged); scenes from the legend of Saint John the Evangelist and other subjects, in the choir of the same church (also in poor condition, particularly in the lower registers); and scenes from the lives of Christ, Mary, and Saint Nicholas of Tolentino in the Cappellone di San Nicola at Tolentino. Another major fresco decoration, at Santa Maria in Porto Fuori in Ravenna, was destroyed during World War II.
The painters of Rimini drew their inspiration from a variety of sources. At first, local Romanesque and Byzantine styles were combined with the new manner which was created around the turn of the century from Roman and Florentine elements at the basilica of San Francesco at Assisi, particularly the celebrated series of frescoes from the legend of Saint Francis in the upper church. Riminese artists also may have been influenced by Pietro Cavallini, although he did not work at Assisi. Frescoes by close early followers of Giotto in the lower church at Assisi left their imprint on the school, especially those in the Saint Nicholas Chapel and the right transept. Works in Florence by Giotto and his contemporaries, especially those of a less monumental and more episodic tendency than Giotto—such as the Saint Cecilia Master who also worked at Assisi—were known to the Riminese. Reflections of Pietro Lorenzetti's frescoes of the passion in the lower church at Assisi can be seen in Riminese Trecento art; and occasional resemblances to works by other Sienese artists of the first half of the fourteenth century, particularly Duccio, may be due to direct influence and not to Byzantine or other common sources. Direct borrowings from Giotto's decoration of the Arena Chapel also appear. And finally, in a passage probably written in 1312 or 1313, the chronicler Riccobaldo da Ferrara mentioned work by Giotto in San Francesco at Rimini. A dismembered crucifix is in that church today, and it was surely painted by Giotto himself, although it is often not considered autograph. This type of crucifix became popular with local painters, and there are many examples, including those by Pietro da Rimini and Giovanni mentioned above, that show its influence. It is often suggested that Riccobaldo was refertring not to the crucifix but to some frescoes in San Francesco when he mentioned Giotto's work there. According to this claim, which unfortunately cannot be substantiated, the frescoes were destroyed when the church was remodeled in the mid-fifteenth century. Proponents of this theory hold that indications of Giotto's lost frescoes appear in the native school.
Generally, the Riminese school achieved a synthesis of the measured gravity of its Roman and Florentine sources and the less restrained emotion of the Sienese, while at the same time exceeding them in its popular realism. The school was an important vehicle for the transmission of Roman and Tuscan style and iconography to the great centers of northern Italy. Riminese influence was widespread throughout the Marches, Emilia, Ro-magna, and the Veneto.
See also Cavallini, Pietro; Giotto di Bordone; Padua; Rimini
BRADLEY J. DELANEY
Delucca, Oreste. I pittori riminesi del Trecento nelle carte d'archivio. Biblioteca di Saggistica Varia, 1. Rimini: Luisè, 1992.
—. Artisti a Rimini fra Gotico e Rinascimento: rassegna di fonti archivistiche. Rimini: S. Patacconi, 1997.
Mostra della pittura riminese del Trecento, ed. Cesare Brandi. Rimini: Stabilimento Tipografico Garattoni, 1935.
Pasini, Pier Giorgio. La pittura riminese del Trecento. Rimini: Cassa di Risparmio di Rimini, 1990.
Volpe, Carlo. La pittura riminese del Trecento. Milan: Mario Spagnol Editore, 1965.
The poet Rinaldo d Aquino (thirteenth century) has the title messere in the ancient codices. He was descended from a prominent aristocratic family, but during his time there were several families of the same name, so that a precise identification is virtually impossible. It has been suggested that Rinaldo was a brother of Saint Thomas Aquinas (Tommaso d' Aquino). In 1243 or 1244, Rinaldo assisted Pier delia Vigna in organizing the forced return of Thomas Aquinas to his castle at San Giovanni. Some scholars believe that it is the same Rinaldo who served as Emperor Frederick II's falconer in February 1240, Chronological considerations tend to rule out identifying Rinaldo with the lord of Roccasecca, who was a partisan of Charles dAnjou in 1275 and was accused by his vassals of seducing their wives. However, Torraca (1902) considers the falconer of 1240 to be the same person who, years later, betrayed Manfred and swore allegiance to the house of Anjou. Internal evidence, such as a brief mention of the town of Montella and a vague reference to a crusade, has no biographical implications.
Whatever his identity, Rinaldo d'Aquino ranks among the earliest and most prominent poets of the Sicilian school. He engaged in a poetic correspondence with Giacomo da Lentini; and Rinaldo's canzorti, second in number only to Giacomo's, have a conspicuous place in the Vatican Codex (Lat. 3793). Rinaldo is mentioned twice by Dante, who quotes his poem Per fin' amore vao sì allegramente among the examples of cantiones illustres. Rinaldo is noted for his rhetorical skills but is a close follower of troubadour themes and styles rather than an innovator. He was praised during the Romantic era for what seemed to be a popularizing vein in his lament Già mai non mi conforto; however, the theme of a girl abandoned by her lover, who is departing on a crusade, is strictly conventional, hailing back to the Gascon troubadour Marcabru (fl. c. 1130-1148), and the poem contains many lexical items that are refined and Proven-çalizing.
See also Giacomo da Lentini; Italian Poetry: Lyric; Italian Prosody; Scuola Poetica Siciliana
FREDE JENSEN
Apollonio, Mario. Uomini e forme nella cultura italiana delle origini, Florence: Sansoni, 1943, pp. 189-193.
Bertoni, Giulio. Il Duecento. Milan: Vallardi, 1947, p. 104.
Contini, Gianfranco, ed. Poeti del Duecento, Vol. 1. Milan and Naples: Ricciardi, 1960, pp. 111-114.
Lazzeri, Gerolamo. Antologia dei primi secoli aella Utteratura italiana. Milan: Hoepli, 1942, pp. 592-604.
Monaci, Ernesto. Crestomazia italiana dei primi secoli, rev. ed., ed. Felice Arese, Rome, Naples, and Città di Castello: Società Ed. Dante Alighieri, 1955, pp. 114-120.
Pasquini, Emilio, and Antonio Enzo Quaglio. Il Duecento dalle origini a Dante. Bari: Laterza, 1970, pp. 211-216.
Tallgren, O. ]. "Les poésies de Rinaldo dAquino, rimeur de l'école sicilienne du XIII siècle." Mémoires de la Société néo-philologique de Helsingfors, 6, 1917, pp. 172-303.
Torraca, Francesco. Studi su la lirica italiana del Duecento. Bologna: Zanichelli, 1902, pp. 102-112, 185-195.
What little information we have about the life of Ristoro d'Arezzo (thirteenth century) is obtained from his only work, Composizione del mondo colle sue cascioni, which has come down to us in five manuscripts. He was an adult in 1239, when he viewed a total eclipse of the sun. He was apparently a monk, and he compiled his treatise in 1282, in the dialect of Arezzo.
Ristoro's treatise is divided into two books: the first book consists of twenty-four chapters; the second is subdivided into eight divisions (distinzioni) that are in turn subdivided into chapters. The expansion into eight divisions shows Ristoro's attempt at proportion; however, the symmetry of the outer sections contrasts with the lack of form of the inner chapters. Ristoro's cosmological compilation is easily assignable to the category of encyclopedias; indeed, Ristoro states as his purpose in writing the treatise that human beings, the most noble creatures in the world, may "know, understand, comprehend, hear, and see the marvelous works of this world" and, further, that they may recognize in all these works the hand of God, their creator (1.1.4). This programmatic beginning manifests itself in two recurrent ideas: first, that the world should be described as it is; and second, that this description should be tied to the question of why the world is as it is. Ristoro chooses to follow the classical path leading from macrocosm to microcosm. The first book describes only the visible manifestations of divine creation, in a process that moves from the heavenly spheres to the culmination of creation, mankind; the second book treats, through causal analysis, the phenomena that have already been described.
Ristoro does not always name his many sources. Moreover, his knowledge of Aristotle, Ptolemy, Abdumaser, Averroes, Avicenna, and Alfraganus does not necessarily derive from a reading of the original texts (or from their Latin translations); he may have had recourse to florilegia and compendiums. The dissemination of Ristoro's text was restricted to narrow geographical limits, but influences on Dante and later on Leon Battista Alberti and Leonardo da Vinci can be demonstrated.
Ristoro's work occupies a middle position in the development of the encyclopedia, which had Isidore of Seville and the Venerable Bede as its first medieval representatives and continued to develop through the rediscovery of ancient Greek knowledge until it eventually emerged in the great Specula of Vincent of Beauvais and the Summa of Thomas Aquinas.
RALF LÜTZELSCHWAB Translated by Z. Philip Ambrose
Ristoro d'Arezzo. La composizione del mondo colle sue cascioni, ed. Alberto Morino. Florence: Presso l'Accademia della Crusca, 1976.
—. La composizione del mondo, ed. Alberto Morino. Parma: U Guanda, 1997.
Altieri Biagi, M. L. Letteratura italiana Einaudi, Vol. 3, Le forme del testo, 2, La prosa. Turin: Einaudi, 1984, pp. 900-909.
Austin, H. D. "Accredited Citations in Ristoro d'Arezzo's Composizione del mondo: A Study of Sources." Studi Medievali, 4, 1912-1913, pp. 335-382.
Matrod, H. "Le mouvement intellectuel dans un couvent italien du XIII siècle: Fra Ristoro d'Arezzo." Études Franciscaines, 14, 1905, pp. 453-468.
Zancanella, A. Scienza e magia ai tempi di Ristoro dArezzo e di Dante. Perugia, 1935.
The Ritmo cassinese is the work of a jongleur who describes in allegorical terms an encounter between two men, one from the west and one from rise east. The work is contained in an eleventh-century manuscript (552-32) in the abbey of Monte Cas sino but is written in a later hand, of either the late twelfth or the early thirteenth century. The poem is in what can be generally called a central-southern Italian dialect; it has ninety-six verses, which are divided into twelve strophes of different lengths. Each stanza is based on two rhymes; a varying number of shorter monorhymed verses (usually ottonari) and a concluding couplet (or sometimes three verses) of longer monorhymed verses (generally endecasillabi). The text of the Ritmo is fraught with metrical, linguistic, and interpretive problems, all bearing on its ultimate interpretation, which can in no sense be said to be resolved.
The poet begins with an exordium to his audience—Eo, siniuri, s'eo fabello,llo bostru audire compello ("If I speak, my lords, I ask for your attention")—and proceeds to speak, in general terms, about his subject: de questa bita interpello / e ddell'altra bene spello ("I pose questions about this life and speak well of the other [life]"). In the first three stanzas, the poet sets the stage for his presentation of the two kinds of "life" by using phrases such as por vebe luminaria factio ("I will shed light for you," i.e., "I will illuminate you") and terms such as scriptura (scripture, i.e., his Latin source, perhaps the Bible) and fegura (figure, allegory, or possibly "picture" or "drawing," which has given rise to speculation about the possible use of visual aids by the jongleur). The bulk of the third stanza focuses on the attractions of "this" life and assumes a sermon-like quality: Ai, dumque pentia null'omo fare / questa bita reguare, / deducere, deportare ... / Mort'è, non guita gustare, / cunqua de questa sia pare. / Ma tantu quistu mundu è gaudebele, / ke l'unu e ll'altru face mescredebele ("Ah, no one thinks to lead a regulated life, [but] to amuse and enjoy oneself. ... It is death, not life, to enjoy whatever may be similar to this [life]. But this world is so pleasurable that it causes people to not believe the one and the other"—i.e., not to see what is truly good in this life and consequently not to believe in the other life, for which this life is a preparation).
In the fourth stanza the poet presents the two protagonists: the man from the east (sse mosse d'Orientel unu magnu vir prudente) and the man from the west (d'Occidente). The last eight stanzas contain the conversation between these two figures, which concentrates almost exclusively on what sort of food the man from the east enjoys. The man from the west asks: Poi ke 'n tale destuttu state, / quale bita bui menate? / Que bidande mandicate? / Abete bidande cuscì amorose, / como queste nostre saporose? ("Since you are in such a state of delight, what sort of life do you lead? What foods do you eat? Do you have such delicious and attractive foods as we have?"). And the man of the east responds: Ei, parabola dissensata! . . . Bidand' abemo purgata, / d'ab enitiupreparata: /perfecta binja plantata / de tuttu tempu fructata. / En qualecumqua causa delectamo, / tutt' a quella bijna lo trobamo, / e ppuru de bedere ni satiamo ("Ah, senseless word! We have pure food prepared from the beginning of time: a perfect vine, planted and constantly bearing fruit. Whatever we desire we find at that vine, and we are satisfied only by gazing upon it"). The man from the west concludes that they do not eat (Ergo non mandicate?) and goes on to say that anyone who does not eat or drink cannot have any pleasure whatsoever (Homo ki nnim bebe ni manducal non sactio com'unqua se deduca). The man from the east responds by noting that if one is not hungry or thirsty, there is no need to eat or drink (Homo ki fame unqua non sentel(non è sitiente) / qued à besonju, tebe saccente, / de mandicare, de bibere niente?). In the twelfth and final strophe, the man from the west—and therefore also the audience—finally understands the hidden meaning when he says: Poi ke'n tanta gloria sedete, / nullu necessu v'abete, / ma quantumqu'a Deu petite, / tuttu lo 'm balia tenete, / et em quella forma bui gaudete,/ angeli de celu sete! ("Since you are seated is such glory, you need nothing, but whatever you ask from God, you receive, and in that condition you rejoice; truly you are angels from heaven!").
On a very basic level, the poem is about the difference between life on earth and life in heaven, or between secular and monastic life on earth, but it also lends itself to several other interpretations. Given their identification with spatial loca-tions—the east and the west—the two protagonists may be interpreted as representatives of two monastic orders, the Basilians and the Benedictines; or perhaps of two divisions within the Benedictine order: those who follow the rule and those who observe it less strictly. In the tradition of medieval debate poems, the Ritmo cassinese could also be a contrast between personifications of "body" and "soul" or between representatives of the "active life" (vita pratical attiva) and the "contemplative life" {vita contemplativa). Given the didactic tone of the poem, the dialogue could also be between a "mystic" (from the east) and a "neophyte" (from the west). However that may be, one thing is obvious: the man from the east has the upper hand in the discussion; and thus whatever his significance is, that is what the poet is attempting to impart to the audience. The lesson of the Ritmo, then, is that one should rise above the material world and its illusory temptations to embrace what is true in the spiritual world; that earthly pleasures are insufficient and lead not to life but to death; and that one can attain an angelic state by observing certain ascetic practices (e.g., monastic fasting).
See also Allegory; Italian Prosody; Ritmo di Sant'Alessio
CHRISTOPHER KLEINHENZ
Early Italian Texts, ed. Carlo Dionisotti and Cecil Grayson, 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 1965, pp. 76-90.
Poeti del Duecento, 2 vols., ed. Gianfranco Contini. Milan and Naples: Ricciardi, 1960, Vol. 1, pp. 7-13.
De Bartholomaeis, Vincenzo. Le origini delta poena drammatica italiana. Bologna: Zanichelli, 1924, pp. 41-43.
Del Monte, Alberto. "Per l'esegesi del Ritmo cassinese." Ftlologia Romanza, 6, 1959, pp. 27-44.
Guerrieri Crocetti, Camillo. "Postilla al Ritmo cassinese." La Rassegna delta Letteratura Italiana, 57, 1953, pp. 294-309.
Pagliaro, Antonino. "Il Ritmo cassinese." In Poesia giullaresca e poesia popolare. Bari: Laterza, 1958, pp. 65-191.
Panvini, Bruno. "Il Ritmo cassinese." Siculorum Gymnasium, 10, 1957, pp. 21-56.
Spitzer, Leo. "The Text and the Artistic Value of the Ritmo Cassinese." In Romanische Literaturstudien: 1936—1956. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1959, pp. 425-463.
Vuolo, Emilio P. "Sul Ritmo cassinese." Cultura Neolatina, 6-7, 1946-1947, pp. 39-79.
The Ritmo di Sant'Alessio is a metric life of Saint Alexis, composed by a religious jongleur, probably at the end of the twelfth century, and meant to be recited in public. The legend of Saint Alexis originated as early as the first half of the fifth century in Edessa (now Urfa, Turkey), the former capital of the Aramaic kingdom of Osroene, where Christianity had spread since the beginning of the third century. From there the legend moved on to Byzantium and finally reached Italy and western Europe, where the Benedictine order promoted and appropriated the Cult of the saint. A Latin prose life of the tenth century, adapted from Greek, became the source of all Latin and vernacular accounts composed thereafter in the west, including a famous French poem (Vie de Saint Alexis, eleventh century) and Bonvesin's De vita Beati Alexii in Lombard verse (thirteenth century).
The Ritmo, which has come down to us in an incomplete form, is preserved in a manuscript (now in the Civic Library of Ascoli Piceno, XXV A. 51, c. 130 f.) originally belonging to the Benedictine convent of Santa Vittoria in Matenano, a Farfa foundation near Fermo, also in the southern Marches. The narrative tempo is quite slow: after 257 lines the story breaks off at Edessa, before the arrival of Euphernian's servants. The lines are divided into twenty-seven stanzas in which an indefinite number (from four to thirteen) of shorter verses (octo- or novenaries) echoing the same rhyme are normally followed by a couplet of deca- or hendecasyllabic verses featuring a different rhyme, tendentiously equivocal (i.e., rich or even homonymic). The metric measures can be traced back to the octosyllables and decasyllabics of Occitan and Old French poetry.
Linguistically, the Ritmo belongs to "a koiné of East Central Italy, whose cultural capital was undoubtedly Montecassino" (Contini 1960). Because of their geographic and chronological proximity, their metric and linguistic affinities, and the fact that they were produced in the same Benedictine milieu, the Ritmo di Sant'Alessio and the Ritmo Cassinese are to be considered strictly related; they are both monastic texts written in a jongleuresque form for purposes of popularization.
See also Italian Prosody; Ritmo Cassinese
RUGGERO STEFANINI
Contini, Gianfranco, ed. Poeti del Duecento. Milan: Ricciardi, 1960, Vol. 1, pp. 15-28; Vol. 2, p. 793.
De Sanctis, Francesco, and Gerolamo Lazzeri, eds. Storia delta letteratura italiana dei primi secoli agli albori del Trecento. Milan: Hoepli, 1950, pp. 40-45.
Diehl, Patrick S., and Ruggero Stefanini. Bonvesin da la Riva: Volgari scelti/Selected Poems. New York: Peter Lang, 1987, pp. 67, 255f.
Dionisotti, Carlo, and Cecil Grayson. Early Italian Texts, 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 1965, pp. 45-75. (Originally published 1949.)
Monaci, Ernesto. "Antichissimo ritmo volgare sulla leggenda di Sant'Alessio." Rendiconti delta R. Accademia dei Lincei, Series 5(16), 1907, pp. 103-132.
See Texts, Early Italian: Ritmo Laurenziano
When Robert Guiscard (Robert de Hauteville, c. 1015-1085) rode into southern Italy in 1047, Norman mercenaries had been playing Lombards against Byzantines there for at least thirty years. Robert's half brothers, older sons of Tancred of Hauteville, had already claimed lands around Aversa, where the eldest, William, had earned the name "Iron-Arm" and had become the first Norman Italian count. William did not welcome Robert's arrival. Eventually another brother, Drogo, gave Robert a miserable outpost in Calabria, which he could control only by ousting the Byzantines. Yet this offered him a base from which to launch ambitious conquests, achieved with prodigious energy. Robert used terror and bloodshed, but his signature strategy was the ruse, as when he allegedly feigned death and penetrated a monastic stronghold inside a coffin, lying on a bed of swords. So wily was this trickster that the name Guiscard ("the clever") was used in the eleventh-century histories featuring his exploits.
Robert also proved his mettle on the battlefield. In 1053, a formidable coalition of Germans from the Holy Roman Empire and their Italian allies, led by Pope Leo IX, engaged the Normans at Civitate, hoping to dislodge them from Italy. Robert distinguished himself in this Norman victory, and soon he was challenging his brother Humphrey for hegemony among the Normans of Italy. Before Humphrey died in 1057, he commended his son Abelard to Robert's care, but Robert promptly claimed his nephew's lands. The boy would grow up to foment insurrections against his uncle but eventually sought asylum in Byzantium after yet another unsuccessful resistance in 1080. Such rebellions punctuated Robert's reign, even as he expanded his domination, seizing Capua from the Lombards and finally—in 1071, after a three-year siege—taking Bari, the last Byzantine foothold in Italy.
Along Robert's patn to power, two events of 1059 enhanced his prestige and legitimized his authority. First, having repudiated his wife (the mother of his son, Bohemond), Robert compelled Prince Gisulf II of Salerno to surrender his sister Sichel gaita in marriage. Now linked to a venerable Lombard princely family, Robert also allied himself with the papacy, which sought the support of the Normans in the investiture conflict against the Holy Roman emperor and the imperial antipope. Thus at the synod of Melfi, Robert—who had been thrice excommunicated—acquired a papal blessing and the tide of duke of Apulia and Calabria and Sicily.
Before this, Robert had not even visited Muslim Sicily. Yet he now engineered a reconquest increasingly dominated by his younger brother, Roger. Messina fell in 1061, followed by Palermo in 1072. But rebellions in Italy forced Robert to return there, effectively leaving Sicily to Roger. Robert, meanwhile, trained his eye on Byzantium, made enticingly vulnerable by dynastic struggles and the advance of the Seljuk Turks. Emperor Michael VII, desperate for aid from the Normans, had even betrothed his son to Robert's daughter. After Michael was dethroned in a coup in 1078, Robert invoked kinship as a pretext for invading Byzantium. Yet once again Italy drew him back from the campaign, this time to rescue Pope Gregory VII from the Holy Roman emperor Henry IV, who had seized Rome and deposed Gregory. In a mission notorious for its violence and for the alleged burning of Rome, Robert retrieved the pope and took him to Salerno, where he died in May 1085. Robert resumed his Byzantine offensive, taking Corfu while his younger son Roger accompanied Norman forces to the mainland. But Robert died suddenly, on 17 July 1085, when an epidemic of typhoid fever swept through his army. Roger's army promptly deserted, while Sichelgaita took Robert's body to Venosa for burial next to his older brothers in the church of the Holy Trinity. In the twelfth century, his grave attracted a suitable epitaph, which began: "Here lies the terror of the world, Guiscard."
See also Bohemond of Taranto; Gregory VII, Pope; Leo IX, Pope; Lombards; Melfi, Synod of; Normans; Roger I; Roger Borsa; Tancred of Hauteville, Sons of
EMILY ALBU
Amatus. Storia de' Normanni di Amato di Montecassino, ed. Vincenzo de Bartholomaeis. Fond per la Storia d'ltalia, Scrittori. Secolo, 11(76). Rome: Tipografia del Senato, 1935.
Geoffrey Malaterra. De rebus gestis Rogerii Calabriae et Siciliae comitis et Roberti Guiscardi ducis fratris eius, ed. Ernesto Pontieri. In Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, 2nd ed., Vol. 5(1). Bologna: Nicola Zanichelli, 1925-1928.
William of Apulia. La geste de Robert Guiscard, ed. Marguerite Mathieu. Palermo: Istituto Siciliano di Studi Bizantini e Neoellenici, 1961.
Chalandon, Ferdinand. Histoire de la domination normande en Italie et en Sicile, 2 vols. Paris: A. Picard et Fils, 1907. (Reprint, New York: B. Franklin, 1960.)
Douglas, David C. The Norman Achievement, 1050-1100. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1969.
Loud, G. A. The Age of Robert Guiscard: Southern Italy and the Norman Conquest. Essex: Pearson Education, 2000.
Norwich, John Julius. The Other Conquest. New York: Harper and Row, 1967. (Published in England as The Normans in the South, 1016-1130.)
Taviani-Carozzi, Huguette. La terreur du monde: Robert Guiscard et la conquête normande en Italie—Mythe et histoire. Paris: Fayard, 1996.
Wolf, Kenneth Baxter. Making History: The Normans and Their Historians in Eleventh-Century Italy. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995.
Robert of Anjou, king of Naples ("the Wise," 1278-1343; r. 1309-1343) was the third son of Charles II of Anjou. Robert was held hostage by the Aragonese from 1285 to 1295. He was created duke of Calabria and vicar of the Regno for his father in 1297, and he became prince of Salerno in 1304. Robert succeeded as king of Sicily and count of Piedmont, Provence, and Forcalquier in 1309, despite the claims of his eldest brother's son, Carobert. Robert's two wives were Violante of Aragon, sister of James II; and Sancia of Aragon, daughter of James II. Robert was survived by two daughters, Joanna and Maria; the former succeeded him, becoming Queen Joanna I of Naples.
Robert became king as Emperor Henry VII was preparing an expedition to Italy to be crowned. The Guelf party, which opposed Henry's plans, looked to Robert for leadership, but initially he supported Pope Clement V, who hoped to form a partnership with Henry to bring peace to Italy. Clement, recognizing Robert's support, made him rector of the Romagna (excluding Bologna) in 1310 and supported a marriage alliance between Robert's heir and Henry's daughter. This alliance was never achieved, and relations worsened when Robert refused to do homage to Henry in person for Piedmont, Provence, and Forcalquier. Robert did not prevent Henry from reaching Rome and being crowned; but as the Guelfs' opposition to Henry grew, an army sent by Robert hastened the emperor's withdrawal. Robert became captain of the Guelf league in February 1313 and soon afterward accepted the lordship of numerous communes. In April 1313 he became lord of Florence for five years. Henry responded by condemning Robert, but Henry died in 1313 while marching on Florence, where an army sent by Robert was preparing to oppose him.
Simone Martini (1284-1344), Saint Louis of Toulouse Conferring on His Brother Robert of Anjou the Crown of the Kingdom of Naples; and scenes from the Life of Saint Louis, c. 1317. Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples. Photo: © Scala/Art Resource, N.Y.
Meanwhile Frederick of Sicily, supporting Henry in this quarrel (which he had helped to precipitate), invaded Calabria, thereby breaking the peace of Caltabellotta. Robert repulsed him and thereafter made several unsuccessful attempts (in 1314, 1316, 1325-1326, 1335, and 1339-1342) to recover Sicily; these attempts further impoverished his already troubled realm, and despite his sincere efforts to impose good justice and administration, Robert perpetuated corruption and disorder. The degree of Robert's failure to impose his ideal of good government is disputed, but that he failed is not in question.
Robert continued throughout his reign to be involved in politics farther north. In 1317, the Florentines renewed his lordship for four years. In 1325, he sanctioned an offer to make his son Charles of Calabria lord of Florence. Both Charles and Robert opposed the expedition by Emperor Lewis of Bavaria, not least because an alliance between Lewis and Frederick of Sicily posed a threat to the Regno.
Robert was religious to the point of bigotry and was detested by the northern Ghibellines, but in his own kingdom he was the most popular of the Angevin kings—a reputation for which his public works, especially in Naples, and his patronage of the arts and literature may have been partly responsible. Among those whom he patronized were Petrarch and Boccaccio. Simone Martini's picture of Robert worshiping his brother Louis is reputedly the first painted portrait in European art.
See also Angevin Dynasty; Boccaccio, Giovanni; Caltabellotta, Treaty of; Clement V, Pope; Florence; Frederick III, King of Sicily; Guelfs; Henry VII of Luxembourg; James II, King of Aragon; Lewis of Bavaria; Martini, Simone; Naples; Paolo da Perugia; Petrarca, Francesco
CAROLA M. SMALL
Dominicus de Gravina. Chronicon de rebus in Apulia gestis, 1333-1350, ed. Albano Sorbelli. Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, 12(3). Citta di Castello: Lapi, 1903.
Mussato, Albertino. Historia Augusta: Liber IV, Henrici VII; Liber V, De Gestis Italicorum post Henricum Septimum Caesarem. Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, 10. Citta di Castello: Lapi.
Villani, Giovanni, and Matteo Villani. Croniche, 13 vols., ed. Ignazio Moutier. Florence: Magheri, 1823-1826.
Baddeley, St. Clair. Robert the Wise and His Heirs: 1278-1352. London, 1897.
Bowsky, W. M. Henry VII in Italy: The Conflict of Empire and City State, 1310-1313. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1960.
Caggese, Romolo. Roberto d'Angio e i suoi tempi, 2 vols. Florence: Bemporad, 1922-1930.
Housley, N. "Angevin Naples and the Defence of the Latin East: Robert the Wise and the Naval League of 1334." Byzantion, 51, 1981, pp. 548-556.
Leonard, Emile. Les Angevins de Naples. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1954.
Monti, Gennaro Maria. Da Carlo primo a Roberto di Angio. Trani, 1936.
Roger I, count of Sicily (1031—1101, r. 1085-1101), was the brother of Robert Guiscard and was largely responsible for the Norman conquest of Sicily. Roger had been campaigning there since at least 1061, when Messina had fallen, and he took the last Muslim stronghold, Noto, in 1091. He is said to have had only a handful of soldiers (just 130 knights at the battle of Cerami in 1063), but he became the most powerful figure in the south after his brother's death in 1085. Most scholars agree that Roger I laid the foundations for the later cohesion and wealth of the kingdom of Sicily.
Roger's comital activities can be partially reconstructed from evidence in surviving charters, most of which is published. At a meeting at Mazara in 1093, Roger and his followers divided up the conquered Muslims among their new lords using long lists known as jara'ida. One such list in favor of the cathedral at Catania in 1095 is extant in its original form, containing 345 names including fifty-three widows. A grant of peasants made to Guiscard's son, Duke Roger, was confirmed by his uncle to the cathedral of Palermo in the same year. Another element of Roger's documented activity was granting the monks of Saint Philip at Fragala judicial rights over their peasants, a technique of local government that would be taken up and repeated by Roger II. Roger I's activities were not confined to the island of Sicily: his foundation of the monastery of the Holy Trinity at Mileto in Calabria in 1080-1081, including endowing the house with property and churches in Calabria and Sicily, is recorded in a surviving copy of the original charter. Some judicial rights also appear to have been granted to the abbot in 1093, and Roger confirmed further privileges in a surviving but undated charter. Indeed, Mileto remained his chief residence throughout his life. In 1093, he also clarified a grant and presided over a court case in the Calabrian town of Stilo, and he is recorded as the patron of Greek monks there in 1094 and 1097.
Roger had a mostly cordial relationship with Pope Urban II, and the two cooperated, though sometimes uneasily, regarding the reorganization of the church in Sicily, with the see of Troina transferred to Messina, and Syracuse and Catania given bishops. In an unusual concession, Roger was given responsibility for many of the duties that a papal legate would have undertaken on the island, after he had objected to Urban's appointment of the bishop of Messina to that dignity.
Roger married three times. His first wife, in 1061, was Judith (d. 1080), daughter of William d'Evreux, who is said to have commanded the defense of Troina. His second wife was Eremburga, daughter of William de Mortain. His third wife was Adelasia (d. 1118), daughter of the marquis Manfred of Savona; his and Adelasia's sons were Simon (d. 1105) and Roger II. In addition, Roger I had two illegitimate sons: Jordan, who predeceased his father in 1089; and Geoffrey, who suffered from leprosy. Roger died in 1101, and after a period of minority during which Adelasia governed, Simon and Roger II succeeded him as counts of Sicily.
See also Normans; Robert Guiscard; Roger II
PATRICIA SKINNER
Gaufredus Malaterra. De Rebus Gestis Rogerii Calabriae et Siciliae Comitis et Roberti Guiscardi ducis fratris eius, ed. E. Pontieri. Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, 1. Bologna, 1928.
Loud, G. A. "Byzantine Italy and the Normans." In Byzantium and the West, c. 850-e. 1200: Proceedings of the XVIII Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, Oxford, 30 March-1st April 1984, ed. J. D. Howard-Johnston. Amsterdam: Adolf M. Hakkert, 1988. (Reprinted, with other important essays, in G. A. Loud. Conquerors and Churchmen in Norman Italy. Aldershot and Brookfield, Vt.: Variorum, 1999.)
Matthew, Donald. The Norman Kingdom of Sicily. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Ménager, L.-R. Hornmes et institutions de l'Italie normande. London: Variorum, 1981.
Takayama, Hiroshi. The Administration of the Norman Kingdom of Sicily. Leiden: Brill, 1993.
Roger II (1095-1154) created the twelfth-century kingdom of southern Italy and Sicily, known as the Regno. He was the son of Count Roger I of Sicily and his third wife, Adelaide (Adelasia) of Savona, later queen of Jerusalem. Roger I died in 1101, and Roger II succeeded his elder brother, Simon, in 1105. Once he reached his majority, Roger II pursued a clear objective—to accumulate mainland territories in southern Italy. He conquered Calabria in 1122; he succeeded his childless cousin William to the duchy of Apulia in 1127 and was formally recognized as duke of Apulia on 23 August 1128; he acquired the principality of Capua in 1129. Finally, in Palermo, on Christmas day 1130, Roger was crowned king of Sicily, Calabria, and Apulia. The title was conferred, however, by the antipope Anacletus II, following a papal schism. On 25 July 1139, Pope Innocent II made Roger's title official, crowning him king of Sicily, duke of Apulia, and prince of Capua.
According to one chronicler, the celebrations and ceremony for Roger's coronation in Palermo in 1130 were so spectacular that "it was as if the whole city were being crowned." Many scholars have considered Roger's reign equally extraordinary. He ruled over all of Italy south of the Garigliano River, down through Sicily. Although he did not inherit a unified kingdom, accustomed to monarchical rule, he created something resembling one. Roger's rule is impossible to describe easily, for it did not conform to contemporary models of medieval kingship. He bound together the disparate ethnic groups who populated the region. Their coexistence was a practical necessity. He constructed a central government in Palermo that borrowed from the economic, administrative, and legal traditions of his Arab, Norman, Greek, and Italian-Lombard subjects. Roger was the leading feudal lord among feudal lords. He laid the groundwork for Catalogus baronum, the list of financial and military obligations owed to the crown by many of his barons. Arab-inspired offices were created to manage finances. A French-inspired chancery, overseen by a chamberlain, issued official court documents in Greek, Arabic, and Latin. A permanent Greek-style bureaucracy or civil service, based in Palermo, helped to manage the vast kingdom. Finally, the king himself, no doubt drawing inspiration from the Byzantium of Justinian, presented himself as a divinely appointed ruler. (Like Justinian, Roger may also have been a lawgiver. A law code, erroneously called the Assises of Ariano, has been attributed to him, but more recent scholarship disputes this.)
However one chooses to characterize the kingship of Roger II, he was undeniably successful. Periodic opposition to his rule—in particular, vassal rebellions led by his brother-in-law Rainulf— never lasted long. His foreign policy revealed ambitions, perhaps to expand his kingdom but more likely to safeguard it against external attack. He added much of North Africa to his kingdom while holding off threats from the Greeks, the northern Italians, and the German empire. He maintained a considerable war chest to support his army and navy. Roger's accomplishments did not go unnoticed: a contemporary observed that Roger "did more asleep than others did awake."
Roger II's personality and lineage should not be ignored in assessing his reign. He was described as the fairly stereotypical "Viking" warrior: tall, loud, regal, ruthless, and skilled from childhood on. Roger's upbringing was anything but standard: he was probably raised in the royal court at Mileto in Calabria, where he was schooled in Greek and Arabic. When he was king, his court at Palermo was famous for its eclectic group of western and eastern intellectuals. This tradition continued in Sicily long after Roger's death.
When Roger died, at age fifty-eight, he was survived by his third wife, Beatrice of Rethel, and their new daughter, Constance. Constance would eventually marry the son of Frederick I Barbarossa, Henry VI, thereby uniting the Norman and Hohenstaufen lines. In 1151, before his death, Roger had ensured the succession by naming and crowning as his heir his fourth son (his oldest surviving son), William I. William's mother was Roger's first wife, Elvira, daughter of Alfonso VI of Castille. A modern historian summed up Roger's reign by noting, "From his father he had inherited a county; to his son he bequeathed a kingdom." This kingdom would endure, largely intact, under the guidance of his son and grandson, William I and William II. They inherited the tradition of a strong, centralized monarchical rule established by their illustrious forebear.
Older scholarship proclaimed that Roger II had created the "first modern state." More recent work has suggested that the kingdom was not so unified as had previously been thought, and that Roger's apparent acceptance of the different cultures over which he ruled was motivated more by political expediency than by laudable tolerance. Roger's reign was an "absolute" monarchy that recognized the weaknesses of this unique kingdom and harnessed its strengths: a large geographic territory, surrounded by ambitious and watchful neighbors, and populated by people of vastly different religious, cultural, and administrative backgrounds. Roger II encouraged tolerance in this multiethnic state when it was politically necessary; overall, he expected strict obedience to his rule.
Roger's last wish, to be buried in the cathedral of Cefalù, which he had founded in 1131 outside Palermo, was not granted; he rests in the cathedral at Palermo, Nevertheless, the fusion of eastern and western architectural and artistic elements at Cefalù reflects the character of Roger's reign: innovative and intimidating political authority set against a glittering backdrop of cultural assimilation and coexistence.
See also Cefalù; Normans; Roger I; William I; William II
JOANNA H. DRELL
Alexander of Telese. Alexandri Telesini Abbatis Ystoria Rogerii Regis Sicilie Calabrie atque Apulie, ed. Ludovica De Nava. Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medio Evo, Fonti per la Storia d'ltalia, 112. Rome: Nella Sede dell'Istituto, 1991.
Brühl, Carlrichard. Rogerii II: Regis diplomata Latina. Codex Diplomaticus Regni Siciliae, Series 1, Diplomata Regum et Principum e Gente Normannorum, 2(1). Cologne: Böhlau, 1987.
Catalogus Baronum, ed. Evelyn Jamison. Rome: Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medio Evo, 1972.
The Liber Augustalis or Constitutions of Melfi Promulgated by the Emperor Frederick II for the Kingdom of Sicily in 1231, trans. James Powell, Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1971.
Abulafia, David. The Two Italies: Economic Relations between the Norman Kingdom of Sicily and the Northern Communes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977.
—. Italy, Sicily, and the Mediterranean, 1100-1400. London: Variorum Reprints, 1987.
—. The Western Mediterranean Kingdoms 1200-1500: The Struggle for Dominion. London: Longman, 1997.
Amari, Micheie. Storia dei musulmani di sicilia, 2nd ed., ed. G. Levi della Vida and C. A. Nallino, 3 vols. Catania, 1930-1939.
Capitani, Ovidio. "Specific Motivations and Continuing Themes in the Norman Chronicles of Southern Italy in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries." In The Normans in Sicily and Southern Italy: The Lincei Lectures 1974. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977, pp. 1-46.
Caspar, Erich. Roger II (1101-1154) und die Gründung der normannisch-sicilischen Monarchic. Innsbruck: Wagner, 1904. (See also Italian version: Ruggero II (1101-1145) e la fondazione della monarchia normanna di Sicilia, intro. Ortensio Zecchino. Rome, 1999.)
Chalandon, Ferdinand. Histoire de la domination normande en Italie et en Sicile, 2 vols. Paris: Librarie A. Picard et fils, 1907. (Reprint, 1991.)
—, "The Conquest of South Italy and Sicily by the Normans" and "The Norman Kingdom of Sicily." Cambridge Medieval History, 5, 1926, pp. 167-207.
Cuozzo, Errico. Catalogus Baronum commentario. Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medio Evo, 101. Rome: Nella Sede dell'Istituto, 1984.
—. "Quei makdetti normanni": Cavalieri e organizzazione milium nel mezzogiomo normanno. Naples: Guida, 1989.
Drell, Joanna. "Family Structure in the Principality of Salerno under Norman Rule." Anglo-Norman Studies, 18, 1996, pp. 79-103.
—. "Cultural Syncretism and Ethnic Identity: The Norman 'Conquest' of Southern Italy and Sicily." Journal of Medieval History, 25(3), 1999, pp. 187—202.
Falkenhausen, V. von. "I gruppi etnici nel regno di Ruggero II e la loro partecipazione al potere." In Società, potere, e popolo nell'età di Ruggero II: Atti delle terze Giornate normanno-sveve—Bari, 23-25 maggio 1977. Bari: Dedalo Libri, 1979, pp. 133-156.
Jamison, Evelyn. "The Norman Administration of Apulia and Capua, More Especially under Roger II and William I." Papers of the British School at Rome, 6, 1913, pp. 211-481. (See also 2nd ed., ed. D. R. Clementi and T. Kolzer, 1987; published as a separate monograph.)
—. "The Sicilian Norman Kingdom in the Mind of Anglo-Norman Contemporaries." Proceedings of the British Academy, 24, 1938, pp. 237-285.
Kehr, Karl Andreas. Die Urkunden der normannisch-sizilischen Könige. Innsbruck, 1902. (Reprint, 1962.)
Loud, G. A. Church and Society in the Norman Principality of Capua 1058—1197. Oxford: Clarendon, 1985.
—. Conquerors and Churchmen in Norman Italy. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999.
—. The Age of Robert Guiscard: Southern Italy and the Norman Conquest. Essex: Pearson Education, 2000.
Marongiu, Antonio, "A Model State in the Middle Ages: The Norman-Hohenstaufen Kingdom of Sicily." Comparative Studies in Society and History, 4, 1963-1964, pp. 307-321.
—. Byzantine, Norman, Swabian, and Later Institutions in Southern Italy. London: Variorum Reprints, 1972.
Martin, Jean-Marie. Città e Campagna: Economia e Società (sec. VTI-XIII)." In Storia del Mezzogiorno, Vol. 3, Alto Medioevo. Rome: Edizioni del Sole, 1990, pp. 259-381.
—. La pouille du VIe au XIIe siècle. Rome: École Française de Rome, 1993.
Matthew, Donald. The Norman Kingdom of Sicily. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Menager, L. R. Hommes et institutions de I'ltalie Norrnande. London: Variorum Reprints, 1981.
Norwich, John Julius. The Other Conquest. New York: Harper and Row, 1967. (Also published as The Normans in the South 1016-1130. London: Longmans, 1967 and 1981.)
—. The Kingdom in the Sun, 1130-1194. London: Longman, 1970.
Takayama, Hiroshi. The Administration of the Norman Kingdom of Sicily. Leiden: Brill, 1993.
Wolf, Kenneth Baxter. Making History: The Normans and Their Historians in Eleventh-Century Italy. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995.
Roger Borsa (r. 1085-1 111) succeeded his father, Robert Guiscard (r. 1047-1085), as duke of Apulia when Robert, who was about to embark on his conquest of the Byzantine empire, died on 17 July 1085. Roger's mother, Sykelgaita (Sichelgaita), did everything she could to sustain Roger, having always favored him over his half brother Bohemond (d. 1111). However, no sooner had Robert died than the nobles of Apulia and Calabria, always restive under Guiscard, initiated a period of complete anarchy. Nor was Roger's succession unchallenged by Bohemond. As a result, Roger was very weak, though he was still able, with the assistance of the prince of Capua in 1086, to restore Rome to Pope Victor III (r. 1086-1087). A few years later, Pope Urban II (r. 1088-1099) would lend a hand to Roger Borsa in restoring some order in Apulia. Roger Borsa was also able to count on his uncle, Roger (Guiscard's brother), count of Sicily (d. 1101), to assist him—for a price—in controlling the conflicts in southern Italy. Through clever negotiation, the count of Sicily was able to extort from Roger Borsa many of the strongholds they held in common, a legacy of Robert Guiscard's earlier agreements with his brother. The only other triumph of Roger Borsa was his success in restoring Richard, son of Jordan of Capua (d. 1090), to his paternal inheritance. Roger Borsa died on 22 February 1111; he is buried in the cathedral of Salerno.
See also Bohemond of Taranto; Normans; Robert Guiscard; Roger I; Roger II
ANTHONY P. VIA
Loud, G. A. The Age of Robert Guiscard: Southern Italy and the Norman Conquest. Essex: Pearson Education, 2000.
Norwich, John Julius. The Other Conquest. New York: Harper and Row, 1967.
Rolandino de' Passaggeri (c. 1217-c. 1300) was the son of an inn-keeper and tax collector (passaggero). Rolandino matriculated in Bologna's guild of notaries in 1234. As communal notary (by 1238), he recorded council meetings and later composed official correspondence. Between 1245 and 1262, he was notaiy for the bankers' guild and guided the reform of its statutes. In 1256, he was instrumental in drafting legislation to free the serfs in Bologna's countryside. Rolandino was strongly against the magnates, and by 1278 he controlled the pro-popolo Company of the Cross. This 2,000-man force was directed against the noble Lambertazzi faction that had attempted a coup in Bologna in 1274. In December 1279, the Company of the Cross thwarted a second coup, and Rolandino was elected communal rector for the first time. In 1284, he played a major role in the revision of the Bolognese laws, many of which now purposely disadvantaged nobles.
From at least 1281 on, Rolandino taught the notarial arts, and he is best-known for his magisterial Summa totius artis notariae (Summa of the Entire Notarial Art, 1255-1256). This compendium of customs, laws, terms, cases, and illustrations for notarial training and practice was neither the earliest nor the last of its genre but is the best. (As late as 1627, it was translated for use in Piedmont.) Rolandino was also the author of an important work on wills and inheritance, Flos ultimatum voluntatum. Rolandino made his own will in 1297 and had died by 1301.
See also Bologna; Notaries
JOSEPH P. BYRNE
Cencetti, G. "Rolandino Passaggeri dal mito alia storia." Rivista del Notariato, 4, 1950, pp. 201-215.
Núñez Lagos, Rafael. El documento medieval y Rolandino: Notas de historia. Madrid, 1951.
Palmieri, Arturo. Rolandino Passaggeri. Bologna: Zanichelli, 1933.
Rolandino, the great historian of thirteenth-century Padua, was born in that city early in that century. He was the son of a notary and took up that profession himself, after studying dictamen under Boncompagno da Signa in Bologna. Late in life, Rolandino became a professor of grammar and rhetoric at the University of Padua. Like his father before him, he had the habit of recording the significant events of each year. His fellow Paduans thus considered him the natural choice to write the history of the turbulent events involving their city and Ezzelino da Romano, the signore of Verona.
Not only did Rolandino profit from being an eyewitness of the principal events he would narrate; he also had the benefit of a model, the Siege of Ancona by his master Boncompagno. Rolandino's Chronicles of the Trevisan March are broader in scope than his predecessor's work, with regard to both time and geography. The real hero of his story is the entire Paduan people. His intention was to blame no Paduan but to praise the steadfastness of all the citizens. The commune accepted his work and endorsed its condemnation of tyranny and its heroic depiction of Padua. Albertino Mussato would base his own Ecerinis, written in the second decade of the fourteenth century, on these Chronicles of Rolandino.
See also Albertino Mussato; Chronicles; Ezzelino III da Romano; Padua
JOSEPH R. BERRIGAN
Rolandino. Cronica in factis et circa facta Marchie Trivixane, ed. Antonio Bonardi. Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, 8(1). Città di Castello: S. Lapi, 1905.
—. The Chronicles of the Trevisan March, trans. Joseph R. Berrigan. Lawrence, Kan.: Coronado Press, 1980.
Arnaldi, Girolamo. Studi sui cronisti della marca trevigiana nell' età di Ezzelino da Romano. Studi Storici, 48-50. Rome: Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medio Evo, 1963.
Berrigan, Joseph R. "A Tale of Two Cities: Verona and Padua in the Late .Middle Ages." In Art and Politics in Late Medieval and Early Renaissance Italy, 1250-1500, ed. Charles M. Rosenberg. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990, pp. 67-80.
The city of Rome was once the capital of an empire. At the end of antiquity, it underwent a revolution in its urban and conceptual identity more complete than that of almost any other European city. After the emperor Constantine the Great (d. 337) had granted toleration to Christians in 313 at Milan, and after the emperor Theodosius (d. 395) had raised Christianity to its position as the state religion of the Roman empire in 380, Christianity finally prevailed in Rome at the end of the fourth century and was even accepted by the powerful senatorial families. A significant factor in this was the defeat of the Symmachus, prefect of the city, when he opposed Ambrose (d. 397), archbishop of Milan, in a dispute over the return of the altar of the goddess Victory to the curia senatus (senate house). Christian apologists and theologians such as Eusebius (d. 339), Augustine (d. 430), and Jerome (d. 420) reevaluated the history of the Roman empire as a necessary stage in the history of the church and thereby laid the basis for the myth of Rome. That myth continued to have an effect through the entire Roman Middle Ages and soon developed a life of its own, quite in contrast to the city's actual condition. Specifically, the departure of the emperor to the new capital at Constantinople deprived Rome of its central political importance for the Roman empire as a whole and led to a decline in trade as well as to problems with the grain supply and the ability of the city to defend herself. Rome was captured and plundered by Alaric and the western Goths in 410 (the damage to the aqueducts being especially serious) and by Gaiseric and the Vandals in 455; this made a great impression on contemporaries, Jerome and Augustine among them, and dealt a severe blow to the ideal concept of Rome in late antiquity.
In 489-493, Theodoric (d. 526), king of the Ostrogoths, conquered Italy, but he lived at Ravenna and made it his capital. Indeed, the king, fearing the senatorial party, which was friendly to Byzantium, remained distrustful of Rome. After the Gothic Wars (536-552), Rome again fell under the rule of the eastern Roman emperor. A few years after the Lombards began their invasions of Italy in 568, only the exarchate of Ravenna and Rome itself were left to the Byzantines, a situation that isolated Rome even more. By the end of the sixth century, the Roman senate no longer met. The popes, who had spiritual authority, gradually stepped into the resulting vacuum of power; for humanitarian motives, they first saw to the grain supply and the repair of the dilapidated aqueducts, but they soon took over wider administrative responsibilities. Among these popes, Gregory I (the Great, r. 590-604) was especially distinguished; he was a descendant of the Roman nobility and was the praefectus urbis (prefect or chief administrator of the city) at the time of his election to the papacy by the people and clergy of Rome.
The brilliance of the ancient metropolis, which had a million inhabitants in the third century, yielded with the passage of time to general desolation and a progressive loss of population. Floods damaged the city, and there were outbreaks of pestilence (such as those of 1348, after which the Romans erected the monumental steps of the Franciscan church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli). As a result, during the High and late Middle Ages, the city numbered only 30,000 inhabitants and presented a landscape of ruins. In the High Middle Ages, the Roman forum lost its purpose as a political and commercial center. The Quirinal, Es-quiline, Caelian, and Aventine hills were abandoned, and thereafter the residential areas were concentrated within the large bends of the Tiber and thus extended mainly from the Capitol to Castel Sant'Angelo (Castle of the Holy Angel), formerly the mausoleum of Hadrian. In this process, the districts ofTrastevere and Borgo became more densely populated. This area is referred to as the abitato ("inhabited ground"). The remainder of the city within the Aurelian walls was, for the most part, not built on and consisted of fields and meadows; in this disabitato ("uninhabited ground") only the great basilicas such as San Giovanni in Laterano and Santa Maria Maggiore stood out. The sites of the temples had long been taken over by churches and cloisters, founded primarily by the popes after the new Constantinian epoch. Among these were some ancient buildings rededicated as churches. Thus the Pantheon was transformed in 609 by Pope Boniface IV (r. 608-615) into the church of Santa Maria ad Martyres (later renamed Santa Maria Rotonda).
The new role of Rome as the seat of the papacy, and thus as the center of Christianity, gave the city a new identity. The ecclesiastical organization of Rome goes back in principle to the first centuries of Christianity. In the Middle Ages, the location of many churches in open land was associated with the decline in population, which separated them from the abitato. The so-called tituli, chapels in private houses that retained the names of their owners, formed the basis of the ecclesiastical structure of the city until the eleventh century. The deaconries (diaconiae) came into being for the support of poor pilgrims and can be traced back to the time of Gregory I. Archaeological discoveries indicate a continuity of use from the granaries of late antiquity. Prominent among the churches of Rome were the "patriarchal churches," especially venerated and sought out by pilgrims. These included the churches that contained the tombs of the apostles Peter and Paul; San Giovanni in Laterano, properly the church of the bishop of Rome, with the seat of the papacy in the Lateran Palace attached to it; Santa Maria Maggiore (Saint Mary Major); Santa Croce in Gerusalemme; and churches (besides the church of Saint Paul) located outside the city walls: San Lorenzo and San Sebastiano. Especially around the churches of Saint Peter, Saint John, and Saint Mary Major lay a ring of cloisters and hospices (scholae and xenodochia—schools and inns) that were intended, among other purposes, for pilgrims of a particular origin (Greeks, Anglo-Saxons, Franks, Frisians, etc.). The term "basilical monastery" (Ferrari 1957) refers to a monastery that was responsible for the choirs in the more important basilicas of Rome. From the seventh through the ninth centuries, the basilicas of Saint Peter, Saint John, and Saint Mary Major each acquired four such monasteries. By the eleventh century, these monastic communities were transformed into communities of canons (chapters). From the early twelfth century, the chapter at Saint John Lateran consisted of regular canons who followed the rule of Saint Augustine. Not until the reform of the chapters by Pope Boniface VIII (d. 1303) in 1299 was the chapter at the Lateran opened to secular canons. The ambitions of the clergy from the Roman elite were concentrated on the chapters of these three churches for at least two reasons: first, unlike other episcopal cities, Rome had no cathedral chapter; and second, the Romans played an ever smaller role in the workings of the Roman curia. A symbolic connection between Saint Peter's and the Lateran was established after every papal coronation by the procession of the newly crowned pope from Saint Peter's to Saint John Lateran, where he took personal possession of his bishopric.
All Roman priests belonged at first to the presbyterium of the bishop of Rome, the pope. Among them, however, those priests and deacons who took over duties in the principal basilicas gained special importance, and c. 500 they were for the first time called cardinales. Later, a distinction would be made between diaconi cardinales and presbyteri cardinales. In the eighth century, the bishops of the so-called suburban bishoprics around Rome—Albano, Ostia, Palestrina, Sabina, Tusculum—were included as episcopi cardinales with the Roman urban clergy. The Roman cardinals, however, were transformed in the eleventh century from a primarily local and city institution into an institution of the church as a whole, in that now foreigners could become cardinals. In the time of Pope Gregory VII (d. 1085), there was a considerable controversy over the rights of this collegium in the election of the popes; the controversy persisted until the legal formation of the college of cardinals c. 1100. During the eleventh century, and probably in reaction to the formation of the college of cardinals, the secular clergy of Rome had organized themselves into the Romana fraternitas, which had originally, in 984, been the Fraternity of Prayer. Its responsibilities, set down by papal privilege, were centered mainly on church jurisdiction and the control of divine services and processions. Around 1330, Rome had 414 churches and monasteries with 785 secular clergy and 1,018 monks, religious, nuns, and hospitalarii. Because the number of clergy was so large, discipline was by no means perfect. As late as c. 1300, there was still significant church construction and significant production of sacred art and painting, but many churches were in decay at the end of the Middle Ages.
Religious life in Rome, however, was far-ranging. The offerings of the Romans especially benefited the large hospitals— Santo Spirito in Sassia in the Borgo and Sant'Angelo or San Giovanni in Laterano. San Giovanni was under the direction of an influential Roman fraternity, the Fraternity for the Holy Redeemer (Societas raccomandatorum imaginis Salvatoris nostri ad Sancta Sanctorum), which was founded probably c. 1300 to honor the image of the redeemer in the church of Saint Lawrence (Sancta Sanctorum) near the Lateran.
Rome. Hartmann Schedel, Liber cbronicarum (Nuremberg Chronicle). Nuremberg: Anton Koberger, 1493, p. 58r.
The civic architecture of the Middle Ages has left few traces. For centuries it had been the custom to draw on the abundant remains of building materials from antiquity (the spoils). Limekilns were used to transform ancient marble into lime. Some ancient monuments such as Trajan's Column and the statue of Marcus Aurelius at the Lateran (now on the Capitoline), which had been mistaken for an image of the emperor Constantine, received special protection and escaped destruction. Around the mid-eleventh century, the nobility transformed numerous buildings into fortresses—for example, the Colosseum, the theaters of Marcellus and Pompey, and the tomb of Augustus—and erected the family towers typical of medieval cities (in 1257 alone, supposedly 140 of these towers were destroyed). The arena of the stadium of Domitian became a marketplace, while the stands were used for the foundations of adjacent houses. Although as a rule builders made do with what material was available, the extension of the borgo around Saint Peter's into a new walled suburb—the civitas Leoniana or "Leonine City," named after Pope Leo IV (r. 847-855)—was a rare example of new urban construction in medieval Rome. This project had become necessary because of the Saracen attack on Rome in 846 and, significantly, was under the direction of the popes. The mausoleum of Hadrian was rebuilt as the Castel Sant'Angelo, which protected the most important crossing of the Tiber, the equally ancient Bridge of Angels; other important bridges were those to the Tiber island and the Ponte Emilio (today Ponte Rotto, the "broken bridge"). Via Papalis, also used as a street for processions between Saint Peter's and the Lateran church, was one of the main traffic arteries of medieval Rome. Other important arteries included Via Recta (now Via dei Coronari) and Via Lata (now Via del Corso), leading to the Porta del Popolo, both of which follow the ancient street plan. According to relatively recent studies, wealthy monasteries like San Silvestro in Capite and San Ciriaco played a significant role in the determination of land for development on the perimeter of the abitato, in that they donated monastery property for the construction of residential building in return for an annual income. From the ninth through the twelfth centuries, the city was divided into twelve quarters (rioni), of which only seven corresponded to the fourteen regiones of the Augustan period. Around 1300, the populous Trastevere area on the far bank of the Tiber also gained the status of a rione, the thirteenth; however, the Borgo did not become an independent quarter until the sixteenth century.
Rome's attraction as an ideal and as a religious power was not diminished. Roman history in the Middle Ages is replete with renovationes that always sought a link—however tenuous— to the grandeur of antiquity. The Romans themselves cultivated the memory of their city's former significance, even though its constitution had long since lost any tie to the ancient context. Thus the leaders of the city administration liked to give themselves archaizing titles such as proconsules Romanorum and senatores. The emperor, the pope, and the Romans seeking their own role (from the thirteenth century on one can refer to them as a city commune) formed a trichotomy that—with occasional interruptions and in differing degrees—determined the city's destiny.
The emperor was certainly the first major power to suffer a loss of significance. However, he did not cease to base his legitimacy on a connection to the ancient Roman empire. In the eighth century, the eastern Roman empire lost most of its control over Rome as the Roman aristocracy undertook the defense of the city on its own. When the Lombards repeatedly attempted to storm Rome, Pope Zacharias (r. 741-752) asked King Pepin III for help and once and for all turned his back on powerless Byzantium. The battles between the Franks and the Lombards continued until 774, when Charlemagne came to Rome for the first time and, supported by his use of the Byzantine rank of patricius, established a Frankish protectorate. On Christmas day 800, he received the emperor's crown from the hands of Pope Leo III. In 824, Emperor Lothar I, in the constitution RomanaLotharii, established the administration of justice in Rome under both imperial and papal control. Obedience to the pope was required of the Romans, and the election of the pope was reserved to them; but the pope-elect had to swear an oath of allegiance to the emperor before being consecrated. There remained continual turmoil in Rome, but with the popes at its center the city exercised considerable magnetic force as the ideological center of the restored western imperium Romanum. Not even the Saxon successors to the Frankish kings could evade this force. Thus, with the coronation of Otto I in 962, there began the series of expeditions to Rome by the German kings, who came there to receive the imperial crown and, as a consequence, allowed the Roman empire to live on (renovatio imperii Romanorum). The influence of the Germans in Rome, however, remained on the whole marginal and usually disappeared immediately when they withdrew. The city prefect (praefectus urbis) functioned in the name of the emperor and of the pope as the highest judicial authority, particularly in criminal jurisdiction, for only he could deliver a sentence of death. The city prefect could also appoint notaries and was the protector of public order. From the thirteenth century on, this office was held hereditarily by the Di Vico family, located in the north of Rome. The judicial system was otherwise in the hands of the two panels of judges: the iudices palatini and the iudices dativi.
Turmoil in the Carolingian empire weakened Rome's ability to defend itself, and the city was plundered by the Saracens in 846. Later, however, the Roman magister militum et vestiarius, dux et senator Theophylact (died c. 924)—with the help of Pope John X (r. 914—928) and supported by a coalition of the cities of Campania, the dukes of Spoleto, and the Byzantines in southern Italy—would defeat the Saracens at Garigliano in 915. Theophy-lact's much-maligned daughter Marozia led his regiment until 932; she was followed by Alberic (d. 954), her son through a marriage with the margrave Alberic of Spoleto. Alberic ruled with the programmatic title princeps ac senator omnium Roma-norum. When his son Octavianus became Pope John XII (r. 955-963, d. 964), secular power and ecclesiastical power in Rome were said to be united. John XII invited Otto I to Rome to be crowned, but John was himself deposed because of his intrigues against the emperor. In 963, Otto I granted the Romans a privilege that essentially reiterated the constitutio Lotharii of 824. The Ottonians sought to free the papacy from the grip of the Roman aristocrats, who were now headed by the so-called Crescentii. Crescentius I de Theodora was probably a grandson of Theophylact on his mother's side. In 974, he brought about the fall of Pope Benedict VI. Benedict had been elected in the preceding year, but through the machinations of his rival, the antipope Boniface VII (d. 985), he was strangled in July in Castel Sant'Angelo, the fortress of the Crescentii. In the end, Crescentius I had to submit to Otto II (r. 973-983). Crescentius II Nomentanus (also known in the historical sources as Johannes Crescentii) created and banished popes at will. Otto III, putting an end to this practice, had his own maternal cousin elevated to the papacy as Gregory V (r. 996—999), beginning a series of foreign popes. Crescentius II was finally held captive in the Castel Sant'Angelo and was cruelly executed in 998. This act of violence exposed the extent of the ambitious renovation plans of the young Otto III, although he would die in 1002, too soon to realize them; Otto III had wanted to erect his own permanent residence in Rome.
Church of San Lorenzo Fuori le Mura, Rome. Photograph courtesy of Christopher Kleinhenz.
Soon after the death of Otto III, Rome became involved in the strife between the Crescentii and the Tusculans—the lords of Tusculum, a small city in the Alban hills near Rome. Both sides turned to the German king Henry II (r. 1002-1024), who decided in favor of the Tusculans and had himself crowned by Pope Benedict VIII (a member of the Tusculan house). The series of Tusculans under the protection of the German kings from the Salian family came to an end in 1054 with Pope Benedict IX, who had to defend himself against one of the antipopes supported by the Crescentii (Sylvester III). Ironically, only Benedict's resignation, purchased with money, made it possible for a reformer, Johannes Gratianus to become pope (as Gregory VI, r. 1045-1046). The next year, at Sutri, King Henry III (r. 1039-1056) had Gregory VI, Sylvester, and Benedict IX deposed by a synod. The new pope—a German, Clemens II (r. 1046-1047)—crowned Henry on Christmas day of the same year. The next three popes also came from Germany. Their rule, though open to reforms, did not always turn out happily, especially when the arrival of the Normans in southern Italy introduced a new source of unrest. Most of the Roman nobility was hostile to the reformers, whose most prominent figure was Archdeacon Hildebrand (later Pope Gregory VII, r. 1073-1085); the reformers' demands for freedom in papal elections and their opposition to simony and to the marriage of priests threatened the interests of the nobles. But the reformers received support from the head of the Pierleoni family, Leo, whose father, Benedict, was a Jew, though probably a convert to Christianity. (Throughout the Middle Ages, the Jewish community in Rome had its center in Trastevere.) At the Lateran Council of 1059, Pope Nicholas II (r. 1058-1061) won approval of the statutum de electione pontificis, which established that the cardinal bishops (who now came from all over Europe and were favorable to the reforms) would designate the new pope, who then would be approved by the two other orders (priests and deacons). The clergy and people of Rome retained only the legally irrevocable right of acclamation. Because the decree of 1059 concerning papal elections also threatened the prerogatives of the emperor, a party in Rome favorable to the emperor was supported by the empress Agnes, who was regent for her son Henry IV, a minor.
Colosseum, Rome. Photograph courtesy of Christopher Kleinhenz.
When Nicholas II died in 1061, the regent designated Cada-lus, bishop of Parma, as the new pope (the antipope Honorius II), while the reformers elected Anselm, the bishop of Lucca, as Alexander II (d. 1073). Open strife broke out during Christmastime 1075, when the aristocrat Cencio fell on Pope Gregory VII as the pope celebrated mass in Santa Maria Maggiore and hauled him off to one of the Cencio towers. The people, however, freed Gregory immediately. On other occasions, the lower and middle classes were to give proof of their loyalty to the reform movement, but they were united in their opposition to the city nobility and were inclined to favor the emperor. In 1076-1077, the investiture controversy, a dispute between the popes and the German king Henry IV, reached its first crisis. The mutual excommunication of pope and emperor also must have created a division among the Romans. After a failed siege in 1081, Henry IV was able to take the Leonine City (Borgo) and establish his antipope Clement III (Wibertus of Ravenna) in Saint Peter's, while Gregory was imprisoned in Castel Sant'-Angelo. In 1084, Henry had himself crowned in the Lateran church. Finally, Gregory VII called on the Normans for help; the Normans did conquer the Germans but also wreaked devastation on Rome, recalling the catastrophes of 410 and 455. The areas near the Porta del Popolo and between the Lateran and the Colosseum were especially affected. The people, embittered, turned away from Gregory VII, who was forced to follow the Normans to Salerno, where he died.
Around 1100, the Frangipani (originally of modest circumstances) and the Pierleoni became the most powerful families of Rome, because of their early association with the reform popes. Although together they supported Pope Urban II (r. 1088-1099), rivalry between them soon broke out. Pope Paschal II (r. 1099-1118) was especially close to the Pierleoni. The imperial party was able to count on the abbot Berardo of Farfa and Tolomeo of Tusculum. When Emperor Henry V (r. 1106-1125) stood before the gates of Rome, the Pierleoni headed the deliberations. Paschal, who had been taken prisoner by imperial forces not long before, had the support of the people and was finally able to end the controversy over investiture. But there was no end to unrest in Rome. In 1117, the Frangipani went over to the side of the emperor and to Ptolemy of Tusculum; they prosecuted Gelasius II (d. 1119), who had been elected pope in 1118; and they disturbed the election of Pope Honorius II (d. 1130) in 1124. In 1130, there was again a double papal election; this time, however, the emperor was not a participant, and both contenders were from Roman families. On 14 February, both Gregorio Papareschi (Innocent II, d. 1143) and Pietro Pierleoni (antipope Anacletus II, d. 1138) were elected. Innocent had the support of the Frangipani and the French cardinals, but the majority of the Romans favored Anacletus. Innocent II owed his ultimate victory in no small part to the decisive partisanship of Bernard of Clairvaux (d. 1153).
Pons Rotto and Isola Tiberina, Rome. Photograph courtesy of Christopher Kleinhenz.
Amid the turmoil of the first half of the twelfth century, Rome developed the kind of communal self-consciousness that in other cities in central and northern Italy had already led to the establishment of independent communes. In 1143, the Romans stormed the capitol, installed senators there for the first time (renovatio senatus), and named the brother of Anacletus II, Giordano Pierleoni, patricius. They thus shook off the temporal rule exercised by their bishop. But because he had meanwhile become the head of a worldwide church, he could not remain outside the conflict, especially since Rome, like the other Italian communes, was seeking to have its own contado (districtus) in Latium. The leaders of the communal movement came mostly from the middle levels of society; they were small landowners, farm owners, merchants, judges, notaries, and artisans. But Rome, unlike other Italian cities, had little economic strength: it was not a large center of trade, and its economic structure was still primarily agrarian.
In 1144, another uprising took place, directed against Giordano Pierleoni, who had been forced out of office, and against the nobility. The young commune found its center on the Capitol, where the palace of the senators was built in 1150. Because the commune had powerful opponents in the pope and his ally, King Roger II of Sicily, as well as in the Roman nobility, it attempted to draw the German kings—Conrad III and Frederick I Barbarossa—to its side. In letters sent to the commune between 1144 and 1155, these kings developed a political ideology based on the model of antiquity. The commune conceived of itself again as senatus populusque Romanus (S.P.Q.R.). After the instability in Rome had endangered the conclave, the commune and the new pope Eugenius III (r. 1145-1153) finally reached a compromise: The commune recognized the pope as supreme sovereign, and the pope in return affirmed the Roman magistrates and was prepared to provide subsidies. In the renovatio sacri senatus, the Romans saw hope for a reform of the empire (restauratio imperii Romani); they offered Conrad a coronation and invited him to live in Rome as his capital. The chronicler Otto of Freising (d. 1158) assigned responsibility for the antipapal and anticlerical elements in the Roman revolution to Arnold of Brescia (d. 1154), although Arnold did not come to the city until 1145 or 1146. Arnold, who lived as an ascetic, was first and foremost a religious reformer. "But in Rome, protest against the laxity of priesthood and hierarchy inevitably entailed antipapalism" (Benson and Constable 1982). Arnold quickly assumed the archaizing vocabulary of the Romans. In 1152, a disciple of Arnold, Wezel (probably a German), rejected for the first time the Donation of Constantine. In contrast to the Hohenstaufen kings, the Romans took the position of late antiquity that the essential factor in the elevation to emperor was the act of election or acclamation—not the coronation, with its religious embellishments, by the pope. There was no agreement with Frederick Barbarossa on this point, and so his coronation in Rome in 1155 took place amid an uproar, during which the Romans finally forced the withdrawal of the German troops.
In 1188, the commune made an additional agreement with Pope Clement III (r. 1187-1191), a native Roman, extending its authority over coinage. In 1191, the pope and Emperor Henry VI allowed the Romans to destroy their rival, Tusculum. Also in 1191, Benedictus Carushomo took over leadership of the city as sole senator. In the future, there would be only one or two senators. Under Benedictus the commune began to dispatch its own iustitiarii as magistrates to its territory in Latium. Benedictus was driven from office in 1193; there followed a series of short-lived transitional governments.
Under the power-conscious Innocent III (r. 1198—1216) and the popes who succeeded him, conflicts with the Roman commune became more frequent. Some of these, mainly regarding control over the election of the senators, were resolved with force. In addition, the Romans laid claim to territory stretching. from grain-rich Tarquinia in the north to Terracina in the south. Their expansionism aroused opposition not only from the popes but from other communes in Latium. In 1199, the inhabitants of Viterbo, 56 miles (90 kilometers) north of Rome, attacked the small castle of Vitorchiano, setting off the first armed conflict between Viterbo and Rome; in 1201, this was settled to Rome's advantage. In the course of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, however, there would be further wars with Viterbo and other cities of Latium (Tivoli, Tarquinia, Velletri). These conflicts indicate that communal Rome had a strong sense of identity; they were also economically necessary, for they concerned control over the access roads and the grain-growing lands north of Rome.
Church of San Paolo Fuori le Mura, Rome. Photograph courtesy of Christopher Kleinhenz.
The situation in Rome in the years after 1201 was characterized by internal friction between pro- and antipapal factions among the nobility. To understand these conflicts, it is necessary to consider the social changes occurring in Rome at that time. The popes saw that strengthening their own families was a way to check the Roman commune and the enticements that the emperor was making to the Roman nobility. The popes increased the power of their families by making over to them ecclesiastical fiefs in Latium as well as offices in the church. In an electoral monarchy like the papacy, this method of ruling, though in itself lawful, nonetheless raised the problem of how the relatives of a given pope, after his death, should act toward the nephews of his successor, who were now themselves seeking pride of place in the curia and in Rome. Conflicts here were often unavoidable, and in the coming centuries they affected many a pontifical change. Innocent III and his family finally emerged victorious, and in the following years Innocent named only senators devoted to him. With Honorius III (d. 1227), an exponent of the Roman Capocci family (and not of the Savelli, as has been generally supposed), became pope. In 1222, Matteo Rosso Orsini became senator of Rome for the first time.
Under Pope Gregory IX(r. 1227-1241), who was a distant relative of Innocent III, the Roman commune was once again drawn into the conflicts between pope and emperor, as it had been earlier, in the mid-twelfth century. Frederick II Hohen-staufen had been crowned in Rome in 1220, and the papacy had initially been inclined toward him but had then become alienated. In September 1227, Frederick II was excommunicated and went in search of allies. He first appealed to the traditionally pro-imperial Roman noble families, and in the case of the Frangipani he was successful. He also found adherents among families that had recently risen socially, such as the Conti and the Colonna. In 1234, a virulent conflict between pope and commune broke out, as the senator Luca Savelli demanded free senatorial elections and the right of coinage, calling into question the agreement of 1188 between the Roman senate and Clement III. The pope responded with an excommunication and even mobilized the emperor against Rome; imperial troops attacked northern Latium in support of the pope. In 1235, after the military defeat of the Romans, a new senator (Angelo Malabranca) and the people's assembly submitted completely to papal sovereignty as regards the city. The Romans also had to give up their expansionist policy in Latium and grant to the clergy judicial immunity and freedom from taxation.
From 1236 on, as a result of a dispute with the league of Lombard cities, Frederick II drew the city of Rome into his concept of empire; in repeated declarations, he celebrated Rome as the ideal center of the imperium Romanum. In 1236, a revolt by the Frangipani, who were loyal to the emperor, had led to the destruction of their fortress in Rome; afterward, however, the emperor was still able to count on several partisans among the Romans. When, on 27 November 1237, he won a victory over the Milanese and the Lombards at Cortenuova, he sent the Milanese carroccio bearing Milan's standard, the symbol of the free commune, to Rome; there, in 1238, it was ceremoniously installed in the capitol. The leadership of the commune was divided in 1238, and from then on it consisted of one imperial and one papal senator, serving in office simultaneously. When Cardinal Giovanni Colonna—with his nephew Oddone, who was serving as senator with a member of the Annibaldi family— openly took the emperor's side, the situation again became dangerous for the pope. With Matteo Rosso, Pope Gregory won the support of the Orsini, and this led to the first great conflict between the Orsini and Colonna families. Their rivalry would long remain a factor in the political history of the city of Rome; but Gregory's death in August ended the struggle for a time. Matteo Rosso Orsini, ruling as sole senator, compelled the cardinals to hold the first conclave in the history of the church.
The pact through which Orsini, on 12 March 1242, concluded an alliance between Rome and the communes of Perugia and Narni permits insight into the social and constitutional structure of Rome. The pact was confirmed by the oaths of eighty-five consiliarii of the Roman commune, who are mentioned by name. This document is all the more important because the archive of the commune was destroyed (probably in 1527) and after 1204 there are few sources for the constitutional organs operative for the next 150 years in the Roman commune. Little is known, therefore, about how the city council was elected. Family lines are known for about three-quarters of the eighty-five councilors in 1242. Although three classes in the population are distinguished, it must be kept in mind that the social classes in Rome were always in flux. The upper class of the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries did not, of course, consist of exactly the same families, even though there were families that did maintain their status for an astonishingly long time. In 1242, then, there were among the consiliarii the exponents of the so-called baronial families being formed at the time: the Annibaldi, Bonaventura-Romani, Capocci, Conti, Malabranca, and Stefaneschi-Raynerii, to which must be added the Orsini, Colonna, Normanni, Savelli, de Sant'Eustachio, and, at the end of the century, the d'Anguillara, Boccamazza, and Caetani. From these circles came most of the sole senators and cosenators who, at the beginning of the thirteenth century, had dissolved the polycephalous senate. The other aristocrats in Rome distinguished themselves by owning numerous castles in Latium and by having influential representatives in the college of cardinals. The clergy from these families received incomes from sinecures all over Europe, especially from the prebendary benefices in the rich cathedral chapters of France and England.
The majority of the consiliarii of 1242 came from families who by c. 1250 would already belong to the Roman upper class and who could, in contrast to the baronial nobility with its property mostly in Latium, be called an urban aristocracy: among them Astalli, Boboni, Bulgamini, Cenci (Cinthii), Crescentii, Frangipani, Grassi, Gregori, Ilperini, Judei (Foschi dei Giudei), Lombardi, Magalotti, Mannetti, Mardoni, Pantaleoni, Papa(reschi), Rossi (Rubei), Sordi, and Stati. The families represented here—to which must be added some prominent names like the Pierleoni, Arcioni, and Papazurri—were of varied background. Some sprang from the nobility—for example, the Frangipani, who still owned castles in Latium but no longer belonged to the circle of the barons. Others had risen in the city administration (e.g., as jurists and judges). Still others had been established by the founding fathers of the Roman commune in 1143. Most, however, were commoners who had become rich through commerce and real estate; among these, some can be identified as bankers (mercatores). Rome, as the destination of pilgrims and the seat of the curia into which flowed money from all Europe, had become an important financial center. Roman bankers lent money to many prelates and even to monarchs. Not until the second half of the thirteenth century would they be dislodged by Sienese and Florentine bankers. The characteristic activity of the Roman upper class was investment in the agrarian sector and the cattle market, although funds did not begin to flow more abundantly into these until the fourteenth century. In the city militia, this class, accessible from below and socially mobile, formed the cavalry (for which reason the class is called cavallerocti in fourteenth-century statutes). Moreover, the families in these circles also traditionally possessed—as we have seen—the most sought-after positions in the church (i.e., the prebendary benefices in the great church chapters in Rome) and could expect, as well, sinecures abroad and high positions in the curia.
Additional names among the consiliarii of 1242—such as Aldibrandi, Angeleri, Cesarini, Leni, Malaspina, Migliari, and Rogerii—bring us to the milieu of the middle class, the commoners proper. They were often notaries; but artisans, as smaller merchants, property owners, and agricultural merchants, were usually dominant in this class. In Rome, however, true popular organizations like those known in other Italian cities would not form until later.
After the mid-thirteenth century, there were important meetings of the council in the neighboring Franciscan church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli. Later (probably under Brancaleone degli An-dalò), the consilium was divided into a consilium generale and a consilium speciale, but for all practical purposes the two bodies met together. The consilium increasingly replaced the people's assembly (parlamentum), which continued to meet in the capitol only for special occasions. In the communal administration, besides the judges {iudices), we should mention especially the magistracies of the camerarii (for the administration of finance), the marescalci (in charge of the police), and the magistri aedificiorum urbis (in charge of construction). The magistri aedificiorum urbis concerned themselves especially with keeping the streets free of intrusive additions to buildings, so that, at certain points in the city, the flow of pilgrims would be unobstructed. The financial independence of the Roman commune was a persistent point of contention between the Romans and the popes; nevertheless, the commune had won its own import duties and a district house and salt tax. The salt tax was very significant for the property of the Saiini of Ostia. In 1339, under a pair of Orsini-Colonna senators, gabelle (taxes) on the Florentine model were introduced; they led to strong protests from the curia, which was anxious to guard its prerogatives.
We must now return to the political events of the mid-thirteenth century. Relations between the Romans and Frederick II remained tense. When Pope Innocent IV (r. 1243-1254), in fear of the emperor, decided to retire to France and maintained a residence abroad for almost eight years, the Roman commune had more room for political maneuvering. The dominance of the baronial nobility in the office of senator, however,increasingly caused displeasure among the middle and urban aristocracy, which in 1252 stormed the capitol and appointed the earl of Casalecchio, Brancaleone degli Andalò (originally from Bologna), the new senator and captain of the people (capitano del popolo). The Roman castle-owning nobility was required to supply hostages, who were sent to Bologna to ensure the safety of Brancaleone. The pope himself must have felt provoked by the arbitrariness of the people and Brancaleone to establish relations with the Sicilian regent of Hohenstaufen blood, Manfred (d. 1266). Brancaleone succeeded irt passing legislation against magnates and introduced to Rome the council of elders and boni homines as well as the office of captain of the people, held by himself, in connection with the people's militia; he thus obtained, for the first time, popular organizations and commissions. Under Brancaleone's regime, the Roman guilds first gained a firm organization. The guilds had emerged from the professional organizations (scholae) already attested to in the tenth century. In Rome, unlike the rest of Italy, the most distinguished guild was not that of the drapers and bankers but the communitas boum (later ars bobacteriorum), that is, the guild of the large cattle dealers, whose consules came from the leading families.
The fickle populace joined with the nobility in 1255 to put an end to the austere regime of Brancaleone but, in opposition to the barons, continued to install captains of the people. In 1257, Brancaleone was able to return to Rome, where he took cruel vengeance on those responsible for his fall two years earlier. In 1258, he placed Corneto (Tarquinia), which was important for the grain supply, under the sovereignty of the Roman commune. Soon thereafter, Brancaleone died in Rome. He was followed by his uncle, Castellano degli Andalò, whose fall in 1258 ended the rule of the people; the double senate consisting of two nobles was reintroduced. A new element was added to the latent internal antagonisms that kept the city in a state of unrest. Whereas heretofore the lines of conflict had been drawn between the castle-owning baronial nobility and the "people" (including the urban elite not represented among the senators), a division now emerged within the baronial nobility. The precipitous course of events after the death of Frederick II in December 1250, which divided the Italian cities into Guelfs loyal to the pope and Ghibellines loyal to the emperor, did not leave the Roman barons untouched. The Conti, Malabranca, and Savelli could be considered Guelf. Among the Ghibellines from the baronial nobility were the Sant'Eustachio and the Normanni and, from the urban aristocracy, the Arlotti, the Sordi, and sometimes the Papareschi. Other families, such as the Orsini and the Annibaldi, were divided politically. Thus the descendants of Matteo Rosso Orsini were Guelf, whereas those of his brother Napoleone were disposed to be Ghibelline.
Eventually, Charles I of Anjou conceived of Rome as the ideal base for the conquest of Sicily with which he had been entrusted by Pope Urban IV (r, 1261-1264)—who, like Charles, was French. With Charles's election as senator by the Roman Guelfs, Rome was drawn into the final battle against the last Hohenstaufen, Conradin. Charles ruled most of the time through vicars from French territories. The Ghibelline nobles were forced into exile, but that did not stop their resistance. On 23 May 1265, Charles I made his entrance into Rome; there, on 6 January 1266, he was crowned king of Sicily by five cardinals. In the battles of Benevento (26 February 1266) and Taglia cozzo (28 August 1268), in which Charles defeated Manfred and Conradin, the last Hohenstaufen pretender to the kingdom of Sicily, Roman nobles fell on both sides. Conradin's Roman partisans were led by Henry of Castille (d. 1303), who had become senator in Rome in 1267. After the defeat of Conradin, Charles again took over the office of senator until 1278. It was the Orsini pope Nicholas III (r. 1277-1280) who solemnly confirmed papal sovereignty over Rome and took the office of senator from Anjou. Although Nicholas transferred it to himself, he passed it on de facto to vicars from the Roman baronial nobility. This constitutional model was dominant for the next seventy-years. However, after a renewed period of officeholding by the king from 1281 to 1284 under Pope Martin IV (r. 1281-1285), from France, the control of the senatorship increasingly became a cause of discord for the great families. Among these families, who were also prominent in the college of cardinals, the Colonna and the Orsini quickly became leaders of rwo opposing groups of clients that can be called "parties." The Orsini were known as pro-papal Guelfs, whereas the Colonna family had the reputation of being Ghibellines, loyal to the emperor. In fact, the real issue was power, although ideological differences concerning the position of pope and emperor should not be underestimated. The Colonna came into conflict with the power-conscious pope Boniface VIII (r. 1294-1303), who invoked a crusade against them. Of course, with the proclamation of the first Holy Year in 1300, the pope also wanted to raise his own esteem. The influx of pilgrims brought the Romans considerable benefit, so that the jubilee was repeated in 1350 and 1390. Several building and restoration projects in Rome are connected to the Holy Year of 1300.
The "Babylonian captivity" of the papacy in Avignon was another factor in these political conflicts. The conflicts climaxed when the German kings came to Rome for their coronation as emperor. This was the case in 1312 with Henry VII of Luxembourg and in 1328 with Lewis of Bavaria (Louis, Ludwig; d. 1347). On both occasions, the emperor received support from the Colonna (who, however, were by no means politically united among themselves), whereas the Orsini and their followers sided with Angevins of Naples. Henry's journey to Rome was preceded by the regime of the Ghibelline Louis of Savoy as senator from 1310 to 1312. The power vacuum in Rome after the departure of Henry VII could not be filled even by King Robert of Naples, who had been installed by the pope as vicar in Rome and ruled through proxies. From 1320 on, the king chose these almost entirely from the Roman baronial nobility—an indication that there were limits to his own rule in Rome.
The power of the barons, however, did not remain unchallenged. For example, there was the so-called populist regime of Giovanni d'Ignano, who in 1305 was (like Brancaleone degli Andalo) summoned from Bologna as captain of the people. Under this regime there was a new edition of the city statutes, the participants having included statutarii from all thirteen city quarters, elected primarily from the upper and middle bourgeois. These statutes (which are preserved only in fragmentary form) affirmed that the baronial families must submit to the communal government, but in a codicil came to the defense of the Colonna family (now returned from exile) against the Caetani.
In 1312, after the withdrawal of Henry VII, Giacomo Arlotti-Stefaneschi became captain of the people. Giacomo was hardly of a simple background; he was a member of the Roman urban aristocracy and was related by marriage to the Orsini family— a fact that suggests the weakness of the popular party. In the ensuing years, the popular party seemed in danger of being ground down between the large noble parties. The baronial nobility knew how to keep the popular party in check; for example, in 1321 Stefano Colonna and Poncello Orsini took upon themselves the official position of "plenipotentiaries and protectors of the people" (syndici et defensores populi). Both were thereby assigned the highest jurisdictional control over the vicars of King Robert. From time to time they themselves fulfilled the duties of senators. In January 1327, both syndici were knighted by the people as they were bathed in rosewater by the representatives of the city districts, the buoni homines. This is the first mention of the consecration to knighthood with ritual bath by the people, an event that would later serve Cola di Rienzo as a model.
In 1327, the dissatisfaction in Rome with the pope in Avignon exploded beyond party limits. A new popular regime of fifty-two electi viri and of the guild consuls drove out both syndici and, in a sharply worded letter of 6 June 1327, demanded the return of the pope to Rome. The leaders of the Roman Ghibel-lines, above all Sciarra Colonna, to whom the office of captain of the people had been entrusted, aroused the indignation of the people and used the opportunity to invite Lewis of Bavaria, who had been excommunicated by the pope, for his coronation. On 17 January, Lewis was crowned emperor in Saint Peter's in a ceremony which was probably influenced by the ideas of Mar-silius of Padua (died c. 1343) and during which Sciarra Colonna is said to have placed the crown on Lewis's head. Assemblies of the people accompanied two further clever moves by the new emperor: on 18 April Pope John XXII was deposed, and on 12 April the Franciscan Pietro of Corvaro was elected as Pope Nicholas V by acclamation. This escalation went too far even for many of the popular party. On the day after the emperor left Rome on 4 August, Bertoldo Orsini and Stefano Colonna, as new senators and with the consent of King Robert of Naples, had already begun to reestablish a government of nobles. The popes, strengthened in this way, sought over the next two decades to contribute to the pacification of the city. The rivalry between the Colonna and the Orsini, however, did not allow the city any tranquillity, a fact that hastened its steady economic decline.
Following she events of 1327-1328, the populace did not gain another leader until the advent of the notary Cola di Rienzo, who became a danger to the barons. Cola is first heard of at the close of 1342, when he was dispatched by popular circles to Avignon, although a legation of prominent Romans was already there working for the return of the pope to Rome and for the declaration of 1350 as a Holy Year. Cola, who was a talented orator, gained the attention ofPope Clement VI (r. 1342-1352), who on 13 April 1 344 named him notary of the capitoline chamber. Susequently, Cola backed the interests of the popular party. The economic importance of that party—and particularly the importance of agrarian entrepreneurs (bovatieri)—had increased toward mid-century, partly as a result of forced sales of the property of impoverished churches and nobles, and partly as a result of new reforms in farm management among the large landowners (casali) in the countryside around Rome. Cola's speeches in the assectamentum, the council of the senators, and in the Lateran Church (on the Vespasian lex regia), as well as his propagandistic paintings in the palace of the senators at the capitol and in the church of Sant'Angelo in Pescheria, were intended to attract attention. Cola was already known in the city when, on 19 May 1347, he set himself up for his own downfall and opposed the "tribunes." He was aware that in struggling against the arbitrary power of the barons he would confront not a single social class but a network of clientage that bridged all classes. Cola's own adherents also came from all social classes. He cultivated allies among the baronial nobility, especially the Orsini. Supported by this wide-ranging coalition, he was able on 20 November to deliver a bloody defeat to the Colonna. Cola's ambitious plans, including the recovery of the Romans' ancient ruling rights over Italy and the imperium Romanum, and his richly symbolic ceremonies met their end when he lost the support of the papal legate and the pope, who saw his own authority as ruler of Rome threatened. On 15 December, Cola fled under protection of the Orsini to Castel Sant'Angelo and from there to the Abruzzi mountains.
After Cola's fall, the government was again led by a pair of senators from the Orsini and Colonna families and their respective clients. Their rule was interrupted, however, in 1352 and 1353-1354 by short-lived popular regimes under the leadership of Giovanni Cerroni, who belonged to an upper-class Roman family, and the notary Francesco Baroncelli and the noble Guido Patrizi dell'Isola, both former friends of Cola di Rienzo. Finally, in August 1354, Cola di Rienzo, who was imprisoned in Avignon, received another chance, but on 8 October 1354 he was murdered by a Roman mob, spurred on by the Colonna family. The inglorious coronation of Charles IV in 1355, on the other hand, no longer provoked the internal unrest that had broken out during the coronations of his predecessors even while they were still present in Rome. The popular interregna mentioned above received papal approval and the backing of the cardinal legate Aegidius Albornoz (who was cardinal from 1350 to 1367), to whom the pope had entrusted the reconquest of the papal states. Pope Innocent VI (r. 1352-1362) was annoyed with the escapades of the Roman baronial nobility and often favored the popular party. In 1358, the barons installed a senator for the last time; thereafter the pope drew senators from abroad (among them should be mentioned Raimondo Tolomei from Siena, Hugo of Lusignano, and Bindo Bardi from Florence). Also in 1358, one encounters for the first time the seven reformatores rei publice, the title of their magistracy alluding to the planned constitutional changes. They, with the approval of the cardinal-legate, formed the real government in Rome. Perhaps as early as 1258—1259, the Società dei Balestrieri e dei Pavesati was founded. This was a militia consisting of crossbowmen (balestrieri) and bearers of the long shield (pavesati); as a kind of police force, it was supposed to protect the popular regime in the district and in the city. Each of the two units, 1,500 men strong, was preceded by a flag bearer (bandarese), flanked by two leaders (anteposti). The new statutes, dated in recent scholarly literature to 1360, formally excluded the Roman barons from the city government and prohibited the Romans from serving as their vassals and bearing arms for them. The following years were characterized by collaboration, but also by dualism, between the Roman commune and the papacy that began to take hold in Rome. The commune profited from the investments in its capital made by popes Urban V (r. 1362-1370) and Gregory XI (r. 1370-1378); but when the question again arose how far the commune might pursue its interests within its own district, there was discord and conflict with the administration of the papal state. From 1367 to 1370, Urban V brought the curia back to Rome, or rather to Latium. It is significant that he took up residence in the restored Vatican Palace next to Saint Peter's rather than in the Lateran Palace next to Rome's real episcopal church, San Giovanni in Laterano. Under his rule, the seven reformatores were made distinct from the three conservatores ca-mere urbis, who were in charge of public finance. The new administrators came from the old city aristocracy and from families that had recently become prominent. With the permanent return to Rome of Gregory XI at the beginning of 1377, an era of church history and Roman city history came to an end.
However, new trouble lay ahead when Gregory died on 27 March. The election of his successor, Urban VI, from Naples, on 8 April proceeded amid tumultuous circumstances, with the Roman masses loudly demanding a Roman, or at least an Italian, as pope—something the continued presence of the curia in Rome should have guaranteed. The hostility of the Romans toward the French cardinals finally gave the latter a reason to move toward the election of Clement VII as antipope on 20 September 1378. Urban VI and his successors, Boniface IX (r. 1389-1404) and Innocent VII (r. 1404-1406)—all three of whom were Neapolitans—increasingly suppressed the independence of the Roman commune. The financial distress of the popes became so acute that they did not shrink from exacting war contributions from the churches, a measure that further diminished their well-being. The Holy Year of 1390, which had itself been declared for financial reasons, revealed to pilgrims the full extent of the decay and neglect in Rome. The end of the free Roman commune is generally dated to 1398, when Boniface IX, recognized as supreme sovereign, received absolute freedom to choose senators and magistrates.
After the success in Rome of the popes of the Council of Pisa—antipopes Alexander V (r. 1409-1410) and John XXIII (1410-1415)—Martin VI (r. 1417-1431), who was also from the Roman baronial nobility, was recognized as pope. Under the Renaissance popes who were not from Rome, the city enjoyed an economic and cultural upswing, but the Roman communal and urban elements declined in significance because of the influx of foreign members of the curia and papal nephews.
In 524, when Theodoric executed trie philosopher Boethius, in whose career and philosophical work the cultural tradition of late antiquity experienced another triumph, people said that the last Roman had died. The Dialogues of Gregory the Great are filled with miracles and, despite their cultivated Latin, already reveal the distance from the educational resources of antiquity. Still, the popes did much for the educational institutions (especially for the schola cantorum and the law school of the Lateran). Because of the decline of Rome in the early Middle Ages, the city lost, successively to Byzantium, Ravenna, Bologna, and Paris, the position as an educational center that it had possessed in late antiquity. If Rome was nevertheless seen as a cultural center, it was above all thanks to the popes and to the Frankish and German emperors—only temporarily dwelling within the city walls—who attracted leading men of learning to their courts. This idea of Rome was quickly promoted by such non-Romans as the Lombard Paul the Deacon (d. 799) in his Historia romana. One after another, the schools discontinued their activity, although especially at the Lateran, the seat of the papacy, there would for a long time still be education for the clergy and the growing papal administration. There may have also arisen a papal library at the Lateran, but since the first catalog of the books of the papal library is known only from the year 1295, little can be said about its holdings. Otherwise, the protectors of valuable manuscripts were the monasteries and the writing schools (scriptoria) that were formed in some of them, at least in the Carolingian and Ottonian periods. From the seventh to the tenth centuries those monasteries especially stood out those whose monks had come to Rome from the Greek-speaking eastern regions of the Byzantine empire when their homeland was threatened or conquered by the Persians and Arabs. From 678 to 751, there was a long series of popes from Greece, the near east, and Sicily, whereas afterward most came from Rome. However, the literary output of the Greek hagiographers working in Rome is of rather mediocre quality. The Greek language was cultivated through the influence of the Theophylact family, which was interested in ties to Byzantium. At the end of the tenth century, the decline of the Greek monasteries could no longer be prevented. Most fell into the hands of Latinists, and their monks were replaced by canons.
Although the presence of the Carolingians in Rome was not strong, they did see to the revival of the schola cantorum, which had fallen into decay, and to the schools that taught law and rhetoric. With regard to paleography, in the vicinity of Rome as far as Umbria a kind of Carolingian minuscule had spread that can be characterized as "Roman-Romanesca" and can be found from the second half of the tenth century to the mid-twelfth century. Its origin is probably to be sought in the scriptorium of the monastery of Farfa, near Rome, which had been founded c. 700 and was closely connected with the Carolingian Anastasius Bibliothecarius (Anastasius the Librarian), who was probably educated by Greek monks in Rome, took part in the eighth ecumenical council in Constantinople in 869 and translated its acta. He also translated Greek lives of saints and theological works and was a champion of Roman primacy. Furthermore, he made contributions to Liber pontificalis, which was edited or expanded by a succession of authors (increasingly from abroad). After 870, Liber pontificalis breaks off, not to be continued until the time of Pope Gregory VII.
Ecclesiastical abuses and the sometimes scandalous events surrounding the papacy during the ninth and tenth centuries nourished a literary genre of "criticism of Rome." Such criticism, which would continue to develop during the following centuries, focused on the papacy and especially on the greed of the curia. Pope Formosus (r. 891-896) was condemned as a heretic by his successor, Stephen VII, who was then himself murdered in 897; Formosus was tried posthumously in the "synod of the corpse," an episode that damaged not only the prestige of the papacy but also that of the city of Rome and its residents. Evidence of this damage is found in the anonymous Invectiva in Romam. It was also bruited about in the west that Rome was dangerous for pilgrims and that there was trafficking in false relics. There were, however, moments of light in the so-called saeculum obscurum. The princeps Alberic called Oddo of Cluny (d. 942) to Rome to reform several monasteries (including San Lorenzo and Sant'-Agnese) on the model of Cluny. Alberic himself founded the monastery of Santa Maria on the Aventine.
The Ortonian period brought positive impulses. Bishop Adal-bert of Prague (who would be murdered in 997 by the Prussians) entered the Greek and Latin community of the monks of Santi Bonifazio e Alessio on the Aventine. After having returned for a while to his episcopal see, he came to Rome again with Otto III in 994-995. Adalbert's biographer, Johannes Canaparius (d. 1004), came from Rome; late in life he became a monk and finally, in 1002, abbot of Santi Bonifazio e Alessio. His Life was commissioned by Otto III and offers insight into the education of a rich Roman layman.
Along with the schools of the Lateran, which produced later popes and upper clergy, the cloisters, especially in the eleventh century, became centers for the growth and cultivation of classical literature. With the support of Count Gregory of Tusculurn, Saint Nilus of Rossano founded the cloister of Grottaferrata about 12 miles (20 kilometers) south of Rome. Like Nilus, his monks also came from Greek-speaking southern Italy. A scriptorium flourished at Grottaferrata.
The young Hildebrand received his education not only at the Lateran but also in a circle, devoted to classical studies, around Johannes Gratianus and Laurentius of Amalfi (d. 1049) in San Giovanni a Porta Latina, where Johannes was archpriest. Lau-rentius was at first a monk at Monte Cassino and later archbishop of Amalfi; he compiled a florilegium with texts on grammar, rhetoric, poetry, dialectic, music, and arithmetic. Elsewhere, the period of the Gregorian reform and the investiture controversy brought forth a literature of learned polemic, but little evidence remains of this genre in Rome. The Annates romani presented the viewpoints of a group of pro-imperial laymen in Rome who arose at the time of Henry IV. Much more important, however, was the contribution of the abbey at Monte Cassino, which had, since 1058 at the latest, its own colony in Rome in the monaster)' of Santa Maria in Pallara (in the vicinity of the arch of Titus). The old imperial abbey at Farfa was prominent in representing the side of the emperor. Rome itself hardly participated in the flourishing study of Roman and canon law that began in the eleventh century. Significantly, Cardinal Deus-dedit (d. 1098 or 1099) was not from Rome but from Aquitaine; yet it was he who compiled a collection of canons of primarily Roman character, using the Ordines Romani and the papal archives. The papal mandates themselves created new laws from the twelfth century on, as decreta and constitutiones. The papal chancellor Aimeric (in office from 1123 to 1141) finally established ties to the law school of Bologna. To what extent such exchanges benefited law in the city of Rome has not been thoroughly studied. Also, how much, if at all, Roman law continued to be cultivated and practiced in Rome is a matter of controversy among specialists.
The turmoil of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, particularly the plundering of Rome by the Normans, was probably (though not certainly, owing to a paucity of sources) the reason for the destruction and dispersal of the libraries in the large Roman basilicas and monasteries. Whether these institutions then possessed their own writing schools (scriptoria) remains unclear. But, significantly, scriptoria are attested to for smaller cloisters and clerical communities such as Sand Andrea e Gregorio al Celio (the present-day San Gregorio Magno) and Santa Maria in Tras-tevere, which were closely connected to the reforms of the tenth and eleventh centuries (the reform of Cluny; the reform of the vita comunis of the secular clergy). The schism of 1130-1138 confirmed the criticisms aimed against the Roman curia and the city of Rome. Only Peter the Deacon (1107 or 1110-after 1159), who was probably from a Tusculum family and in 1131 was the archivist and librarian of Monte Cassino, emerges in Rome as a literary figure. Peter continued the Chronica monaste-rii Casinensis of Leo of Ostia, falsified numerous works, and showed an uncommon interest in antiquity.
Not until the time of the revolutions of 1143-1144 may one speak of medieval "Roman" literature as such; this was the period when the young Roman commune sought with enthusiasm to build its program on the greatness of the ancient city. For the first time, the preservation of ancient monuments, such as the city walls and the column of Trajan, became a public program. Such monuments, through myths and legends, had long been associated with the people's conscious intention of making a connection between the pagan past and Christian Rome. Mira- bilia urbis Romae had its earliest edition probably by the time of Benedict, the canon of Saint Peter's from c. 1140 to 1143. This Benedict was also the author of Ordo Romanus, a kind of manual of the ceremonies and administration of the curia, which since mid-century had been enlarged by the addition of other texts from the city of Rome to form the Liberpoliticus. Mirabilia urbis Romae describes the walls, city gates, bridges, baths, temples, and theaters of ancient Rome and several of the monuments. Benedict's sources are ancient descriptions of the regiones of Rome, lives of the martyrs, the Fasti of Ovid, and Liber ponti-ficalis. Around 1155, Mirabilia urbis Romae was attached to Grapbia aureae urbis Romae, together with two other works: a short history of the region of Rome, from Noah to Romulus; and the anonymous treatise Libellus de cerimoniis aule impera-toris, drawn up by a Roman layman (perhaps a judge) before 1050. Mirabilia urbis Romae, like Graphia aureae urbis Romae, was translated in the thirteenth century into the Roman vernacular (romanesco). Mirabilia urbis Romae became the basis for all guidebooks to Rome until the end of the Middle Ages. Moreover, c. 1200 it was the model for the text, perhaps of an Englishman, De mirabilibus urbis Romae, in which the observation ol antiquity follows very precise aesthetic criteria. Also to be mentioned are the descriptions by two canons, Petrus Mallius and Johannes, of their basilicas—respectively, Saint Peter and San Giovanni in Laterano. They had been encouraged in this undertaking by Pope Alexander III (r. 1159-1181).
The presence of the papacy in Rome attracted scholars from all over the world, especially when Innocent IV, during the Council of Lyon of 1244-1245, founded a separate studium curiae for theological and legal studies, which changed its location in tandem with that of the curia. Thus in 1261 no less a scholar than Thomas Aquinas was teaching in Rome. The scholars and men of letters at the papal court could be found in the monaster)' libraries of Rome, even though many of these were generally neglected and had been decimated during the turmoil of the preceding centuries. Thus Rome's reputation in the world was enhanced once more by the glory of ages past. It is significant that Paravicini Bagliani calls the circle of scholars at the curia the circolo di Viterbo after the city in Latium that was for many years the site of the curia's retreats. In the curia, however, the cultural leaders were by no means only Roman cardinals and their familiae. The greatest patrons were from outside the city; they included the powerful Fieschi family from Genoa, which in the thirteenth century produced two popes (Innocent IV and Hadrian V) and two cardinals. Among the members of the cosmopolitan curia was also the papal scribe, Saba Malaspina (d. 1297 or 1298), who wrote the history of the rulers of Sicily during his time (1250-1285) from the Roman and curial point of view, devoting considerable space to events in Rome. The fact that his work, completed in 1285, was not really a city chronicle is a reminder that until then Rome had no chronicle tradition independent of the curia, although chronicles were flourishing in other cities. For this reason, there was still little cultural self-awareness in Rome. It was foreign chroniclers (e.g., in the thirteenth century, the English Benedictine Matthew Paris and Richard of San Germano, in the service of Frederick II) who took an interest in Roman events because of their general political significance. Also active in the milieu of the curia was the great scholastic thinker Aegidius Romanus (Giles of Rome, d. 1316), who—contrary to general opinion—was no exponent of the Colonna family. Another figure was Cardinal Jacopo Stefaneschi (d. 1343), who was a member of the Roman baronial nobility and was educated in Paris. His three-volume Opus metricum, completed in 1315, gives an eyewitness account of events from the death of Nicholas IV to the end of the papacy of Clement V (1292—1314).
Not much is known about the educational institutions open to those not of the curia. From the twelfth century on, in any case, the Roman baronial nobles sent their sons to Bologna and Paris to study. In 1265, Charles of Anjou, as Roman senator, held out the prospect of founding a university. On 20 April 1303, Pope Boniface VIII founded the studium urbis, a city university independent of the curia; this may not have been welcomed by the not-so-wealthy upper and middle classes. Oversight and administration of the university as well as the appointment of teachers lay with the rectors of the Romana fraternitas and the papal vicar in spiritualibus. Unfortunately, little is known about the instructional activities of the studium urbis. From the circumstances surrounding a faculty position in 1319 we may infer that the university was located in Trastevere and that it played no significant role in the education of the clergy or even the ranks of notaries and jurists in Rome. Those who could continued to send their sons to the recognized great universities of Italy and France.
The general cultural decline in Rome grew worse during the residence of the popes in France after 1305. Early humanistic studies found fertile soil in Avignon. There, however, it was the circle of cardinals Colonna and Orsini from Rome that offered incentives for the new interests. Thus ancient Rome and classical literature stand at the center of the works of Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca, 1304—1374), who was a client of the Colonna and in 1341, under their patronage, was crowned poet laureate in Rome. It is indicative of the cultural milieu in Rome that Petrarch took his exam as poeta not at, say, the studium urbis in Rome but rather before King Robert in Naples. The coronation itself was performed at the capitol by the king's regent, Senator Orso dell'Anguillara, son-in-law of Stefano Colonna. In his letters, Petrarch did not close his eyes to the decay of Rome. His complaint about this general decline was joined to criticism of the Avignonese popes, whom he admonished to return to Rome, their ancient seat. Three Romans associated with Petrarch's circle, directly or indirectly, were prominent authors: Landolfo Colonna (died c. 1331) and his nephew Giovanni (d. 1343 or 1344), as well as Giovanni Cavallini (died c. 1348) of the Cerroni family. Landolfo wrote mostly chronicles; Giovanni Cavallini wrote Polistoria, a topographical-encyclopedic description of the city. All three authors, despite their knowledge of the classics and their contacts with the Avignonese curia, followed traditional models (in the case of Cerroni, especially the Mirabilia); this implies that there was little impetus from Rome itself to pursue the new cultural currents. Only Cola di Rienzo stands in contrast: he was familiar with classical writings and knew how to draw his enthusiasm for Rome into his everyday political actions. He read ancient authors and inscriptions, and his knowledge and interpretations made a deep impression on his contemporaries, as the Cronica of the "Anonimo Romano" attests.
The chronicle of the Anonimo Romano, compiled in tne Roman vernacular (romanesco), but not fully preserved, is unique in the medieval literature of Rome, It is the first chronicle by a Roman, who, without departing entirely from traditional narrative patterns, places the history of Rome at the center of his account. Writings in the vernacular were circulating in Rome from the thirteenth century on, and finally Liber historiarum Romanorum was translated under the title Storie de Troia et de Roma. Despite recent attempts to determine its authorship, there is no agreement about this. Some of the autobiographical details, however, suggest that the author was a doctor, and in describing his times he takes particular interest in the physical appearance of the protagonists. The cultural impulses that Rome could expect from the return of the popes from the "Babylonian captivity" once again disappeared as the Great Schism developed. Not until the schism ended and the Roman pope Martin V was elected in 1417 were the conditions created for the arrival of humanism and the Renaissance at Rome.
See also Angevin Dynasty; Avignonese Papacy; Boniface VIII, Pope; Caetani Family; Charles I of Anjou; Clement V, Pope; Cola di Rienzo; Colonna Family; Crescentii Family; Fieschi Family; Frangipani Family; Frankish Kingdom; Frederick II Hohenstaufen; Gregory I, Pope; Gregory VII, Pope; Gregory XI, Pope; Henry IV, Emperor; Henry VII of Luxembourg; Hohenstaufen Dynasty; Honorius III, Pope; Innocent III, Pope; Jubilee; Liber Pontificalis; Mirabilia Urbis Romae; Normans; Orsini Family; Papacy; Petrarca, Francesco; Pier-leoni Family; Robert Guiscard; Robert of Anjou; Rome: Guidebooks; Urban V, Pope
ANDREAS REHBERG
Translated by Z, Philip Ambrose
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Gregorovius, Ferdinand. History of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages, 8 vols, (in 13), trans. Mrs. Gustavus W. Hamilton, 2nd rev. ed. London: G. Bell, 1903-1912. (Reprint, New York: AMS, 1967.)
HUls, Rudolf. Kardindle, Klerus, und Kirchen Roms: 1049-1130. Bibliothek des Deutschen Historischen Instituts in Rom, 48. Tubingen: Niemeyer, 1977.
The Life of Cola di Rienzo, trans. John Wright. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1975.
Llewellyn, Peter. Rome in the Dark Ages. London: Faber, 1971.
Moscati, Laura. Alle origini del Comune romano: Economia, società, istituzioni. Quaderni di Clio, 1. Rome: B. Carucci, 1980.
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Richards, Jeffrey. The Popes and the Papacy in the Early Middle Ages, 476-752. London: Roudedge and Kegan Paul, 1979.
Rodocanachi, Emmanuel. Les institutions communales de Rome sous la papauté. Paris: A. Picard et Fils, 1901.
Rom im hohen Mittelalter: Studien zu den Romvorstellungen und zur Rompolitik vom 10. bis zum 12. Jahrhundert—Rein hard Elze zur Vollendung seines siebzigsten Lebensjahres gewidmet, ed. Bernhard Schimmelpfennig and Ludwig Schmugge. Sigmaringen: Jan Thorbecke Verlag, 1992.
Thumser, Matthias. Rom und der römische Adel in der späten Stauferzeit. Bibliothek des Deutschen Historischen Instituts, 81. Tubingen: Niemeyer, 1995.
Toubert, Pierre. Les structures du Latium médieval: Le Latium méridional et la Sabine du IX à la fin du XII siècle. Bibliothèque des Écoles Françaises d'Athènes et de Rome, 221. Rome: École Française de Rome, 1973.
Trexler, Richard C. "Rome on the Eve of the Great Schism." Speculum, 42, 1967, pp. 489-509.
Brentano, Robert. Rome before Avignon: A Social History of Thirteenth-Century Rome. London: Longman, 1974.
Carocci, Sandro. Baroni di Roma; Dominazioni signorili e Ugnaggi aristocratici nel Duecento e net prima Trecento. Nuovi Studi Storici, 23. Rome: Ecole Fran^aise de Rome, 1993.
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Palermo, Luciano. Il porto di Roma nel XIV e XV secolo: Strutture socto-economiche e statuti. Fonti e Studi del Corpus Membranarum Italicarum, 14. Rome: Centro di Ricerca, 1979.
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Rehberg, Andreas. Die Kanoniker von San Giovanni in Laterano und Santa Maria Maggiore im 14. Jahrhundert: Eine Prosopographie. Bibliothek des Deutschen Historischen Instituts in Rom, 89. Tubingen: Niemeyer, 1999.
Roma nei secoli XIII e XIV: Cinque saggi, ed. Etienne Hubert. Collection de l'École Française de Rome, 170. Rome: École Française de Rome, 1993.
La storia dei giubilei, Vol. 1, 1300-1423. Roma and Prato: Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, 1997.
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Duchesne, Louis. Scripta Minora, Études de topographic romaine et de géographic ecclésiastique. Rome: École Française de Rome, 1973.
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During the Middle Ages, Rome was seen as one of the three peregrinationes maiores—the most important places of pilgrimage (the other two were Jerusalem and Santiago de Compostela). Pilgrims' guides for Rome often include descriptions of the routes to Rome. The ruins of the antique buildings distinctly reminded those visiting Rome of the fact that this city had been the capital of the ancient Roman empire. Thus three traditions of medieval guidebooks for Rome can be distinguished (although they are often combined within one manuscript): itineraries, descriptions of the antique monuments, and guidebooks for Christian Rome.
Itineraries, transmitted throughout the Middle Ages, served those who had to find their way to Rome from England, Germany, Iceland, or elsewhere. They list the names of places on the road or roads to Rome and the number of miles separating these places; the people who used these itineraries probably asked their way from one place to the next. Although different routes were possible, a few main roads (such as the Via Francigena) can be discerned. Some itineraries also describe sanctuaries that could be visited during the journey to Rome or give other practical information—for example, the condition of the roads, inns that should be avoided or favored, and currencies needed en route.
The earliest examples of descriptions of the ancient city of Rome, which were probably composed in the fourth century and have survived in a small number of manuscripts, divide the city into the fourteen antique districts and list the ancient monuments according to district. The most famous medieval description of the beauty of ancient Rome, Mirabilia urbis romae, was very popular from the twelfth century on. It was written in the tradition of the ancient descriptiones urbium and lists the antique buildings (city gates, palaces, temples, etc.) systematically; but it was not originally designed as a guidebook, although it was often misinterpreted as such.
Most medieval Romipetae were more interested in Christian buildings than pagan buildings and even showed a certain fear of the ancient monuments, which were often associated with stories about witchcraft and sorcery; thus guidebooks for the catacombs and churches of Rome outnumber books listing the antique buildings. The oldest calendar of Roman martyrs that lists the places where they were buried, and thus can be regarded as a guidebook for the catacombs, dates from the fourth century. Another calendar-like text is the Stationes ecclesiarum urbis Romae (The Stations of the Churches of Rome); a first manuscript was written in the eighth or ninth century. This work lists the "stational" churches in Rome according to the liturgical year. Pope Gregory the Great (r. 590-604) is believed to have instituted this system: on each feast day, mass was said in a different Roman stational church.
From the thirteenth century on, the main focus of those visiting Rome seems to have shifted from veneration of the tombs of the martyrs to the acquisition of indulgences. Accordingly, from the thirteenth century until the sixteenth, the Stati on?.* ecclesiarum urbis Romae was often combined with the immensely popular Indulgentiae ecclesiarum urbis Romae (The Indulgences of the Churches of Rome), in which the Roman churches with their altars, relics, indulgences, foundation legends, etc., were described. The institution of the first jubilee year (1300) by Pope Boniface VIII—a year during which all pilgrims to Rome could obtain special indulgences—very likely contributed to the enormous spread of this text during the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. Most copies of the Indulgentiae ecclesiarum urbis Romae first treat the seven principal churches of Rome (those of saints Crux, Johannes Lateranensis, Laurentius et Stephanus, Maria Maior, Paulus, Petrus in Vati-cano, and Sebastianus et Fabianus) and then offer a random selection of smaller churches; however, the copies that arrange the churches according to the topography of Rome were more practical for pilgrims. The relatively large number of (easily transportable) parchment scrolls in which this text is transmitted suggests its practical utility. The differences among descriptions of the churches in the medieval manuscripts still extant are considerable, not only regarding the number of churches mentioned, but also regarding the wording of the individual descriptions, but information came to be more standardized when printing was developed. The early printed versions combining the Indulgentiae ecclesiarum urbis Romae with the Stationes ecclesiarum urbis Romae and a history of the Roman emperors were given the misleading modern title Mirabilia Romae vel potius historia et descriptio urbis Romae. No English translations of this text were printed during the Middle Ages, but the large number of Latin, German, Italian, French, and Spanish editions shows that it can be regarded as the standard pilgrims' guide in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
The eight Middle English manuscripts of the so-called Stacyons of Rome (fourteenth-fifteenth centuries) transmit a version of the Indulgentiae ecclesiarum urbis Romae in verse (the only verse adaptation of the text), and two further manuscripts transmit a description of the Roman churches in prose. Again, the title of the text is misleading, as both versions contain the Indulgentiae ecclesiarum urbis Romae, not the calendar-like Stationes ecclesi-arum urbis Romae.
Guidebooks to Rome could also serve the purpose of a "pilgrimage in the spirit": a meditative journey that allowed the "pilgrim" to visit the churches of Rome without having to leave home. This form of devotional exercise, which became popular in the fifteenth century mainly among nobles, may have developed because of widespread criticism of real pilgrimages. Some of the manuscripts for "pilgrimages in the spirit" were lavishly illustrated with miniatures of the Roman churches; however, they depicted not church buildings that could actually be seen in Rome but rather general, stylized churches.
Additional information on the monuments that pilgrims visited and on their experiences in Rome can be gained from pilgrims' reports, especially from the early and High Middle Ages, when guidebooks were still relatively rare; examples include the texts written by Sigeric of Canterbury, who visited Rome in 990, and Nikolas of Munkathvera (c. 1150). Pilgrims in the late medieval period such as John Capgrave (c. 1450), William Brewyn (c. 1470-1477), and Arnold von Harff (c. 1496-1499) tended to copy the Indulgentiae ecclesiarum urbis Romae, merely adding a few personal remarks.
See also Boniface VIII, Pope; Catacombs; Jubilee; Mirabilia Urbis Romae; Rome
NINE MIEDEMA
Capgrave, John. Ye Solace of Pilgrimes: A Description of Rome c. A.D. 1450, ed. C. A. Mills and H. M. Bannister. London: Frowde, 1911 (Late medieval pilgrim's report in Middle English, using the Indulgentiae ecclesiarum urbis Romae as a source.)
Furnivall, Frederick J. Political, Religious, and Love Poems. Early English Text Society, o.s., 15. London: Early English Text Society, 1866, pp. 143-173. (English fourteenth- and fifteenth-century version of Indulgentiae ecclesiarum urbis Romae in verse.)
—. The Stacions of Rome and the Pilgrims' Sea- Voyage. Early English Text Society, o.s., 25. London: Early English Text Society, 1867, pp. 1-24 and 30-34. (English fourteenth- and fifteenth-century versions of Indulgentiae ecclesiarum urbis Romae in verse and prose.)
Hulbert, J. R. "Some Medieval Advertisements of Rome." Modern Philology, 20, 1922-1923, pp. 403-424. (Fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Latin manuscripts and printed versions of Indulgentiae ecclesiarum urbis Romae.)
The Image of the World: Travellers' Tales. Incunabula, Printing Revolution in Europe 1455-1500, Unit 6. Woodbridge: Comm. Reading Research Publications, 1995. (Facsimile of several early printed versions of Indulgentiae ecclesiarum urbis Romae and Mirabilia Romae vel potius historia et descriptio urbis Romae.)
Itineraria et alia geographica, Vols. 1-2. Corpus Christianorum, 175-176. Turnhout: Brepols 1965, pp. 281-343. (Edition of several medieval itineraries to Rome.)
Rusch, William G. "A Possible Explanation of the Calendar in the Würzburg Lectionary." Journal of Theological Studies, n.s., 21, 1970, pp. 105-111. (Edition of the earliest Latin manuscript of Stationes ecclesiarum urbis Romae, eighth or ninth century.)
Scattergood, Vincent J. "An Inedited Manuscript of the Stacions of Rome." English Philological Studies, 11, 1968, pp. 51-54. (Additions to Furnivall's editions.)
Schimmelpfennig, Bernhard. "Römische Ablassfälschungen aus der Mitte des 14. Jahrhunderts." In Fälschungen im Mittelalter: International Kongress der Monumenta Germaniae Historica München, 16.-19, September 1986, Vol. 5. Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Schriften, 33(5). Hannover: Hahn, 1988, pp. 637-658. (Edition of a fourteenth-century Latin manuscript of Indulgentiae ecclesiarum Urbis Romae.)
Valentini, Roberto, and Giuseppe Zucchetti. Codice topografico delta citta di Roma, 4 vols. Fonti per la Storia d'ltalia, 81, 88, 90-91. Rome: Tipografia del Senato, 1940-1953. (Important collection of medieval descriptions of ancient and Christian Rome, in Latin and the vernacular.)
Weissthanner, Alois. "Mittelalterliche Rompilgerführer." Archivalische Zeitschrift, 49, 1954, pp. 39-64. (Edition of two Latin manuscripts of Indulgentiae ecclesiarum urbis Romae, fourteenth century.)
A Fifteenth-Century Guide-Book to the Principal Churches of Rome, Compiled c. 1470 by William Brewyn, trans. Charles Eveleigh Woodruff. London: Marshall, 1933. (Modern English translation of a late medieval Latin copy of Indulgentiae ecclesiarum urbis Romae.)
Letts, Malcolm. The Pilgrimage of Arnold von Harff. Hakluyt Society, Series 2(94). London: Hakluyt Society, 1946. (Modern English translation of a German report of a late fifteenth-century traveler to Rome.)
Goff, Frederick R. Incunabula in American Libraries: A Third Census of Fifteenth-Century Books Recorded in North American Collections. New York: Bibliographical Society of America, 1964. Supplement, New York: Bibliographical Society of America, 1972. (See 1-68, M-594-M-614 and Supplement I-67a; early printed versions of Indulgentiae ecclesiarum urbis Romae and Mirabilia Romae vel potius historia et descriptio urbis Romae.)
Schudt, Ludwig. "Le Guide di Roma": Materialien zu einer Geschichte der romiscken Topographie. Vienna and Augsburg: Filser, 1930. (Lists medieval guidebooks to Rome.)
Birch, Debra J. Pilgrimage to Rome in the Middle Ages. Studies in the History of Medieval Religion. Woodbridge: Boydell, 1998. (Routes to Rome, status of pilgrims, monuments they visited, welfare provisions for pilgrims, and development of pilgrimages to Rome until 1300.)
Cahn, Walter. "Margaret of York's Guide to the Pilgrimage Churches of Rome." in Margaret of York, Simon Marmion, and "The Visions of Tondal": Papers Delivered at a Symposium Organized by the Department of Manuscripts of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Collaboration with the Huntington Library and Art Collections, June 21-24, 1990, ed. Thomas Kren. Malibu: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1992, pp. 89-98. (Two late medieval French manuscripts designed for "pilgrimages in the spirit.")
Constable, Giles. "Opposition to Pilgrimage in the Middle Ages." Studia Gratiana, 19, 1976, pp. 123-146. (Examples of criticism of pilgrimages, which may have led to the development of "pilgrimages in the spirit.")
Miedema, Nine. Die "Mirabilia Romae": Untersuchungen zu ihrer Überlieferung mit Edition der deutschen und niederländischen Texte. Münchener Texte und Untersuchungen zur Deutschen Literatur des Mittelalters, 108. Tubingen: Niemeyer, 1996. (Lists of manuscripts and early printed versions of the Indidgentiae ecclesiarum urbis Romae, Stationes ecclesiarum urbis Romae, and Mirabilia Romae vel potius historia et descriptio urbis Romae in Latin and the vernacular.)
—. Die römischen Kirchen im Spätmittelalter nach den "Indulgentiae ecclesiarum urbis Romae. "Tubingen: Max Niemeyer, 2001. (Sources and development of Indulgentiae ecclesiarum urbis Romae. edition of several fourteenth- and fifteenth-century German and Dutch translations; study of the history of piety as expressed in the text and of "pilgrimages in the spirit.")
Saint Romuald of Ravenna (c. 952-1027) was a monastic reformer and the founder of the Camaldolese order and is considered one of the founders of the Italian eremitical movement of the eleventh century.
Romuald was born into the ducal Onesti family at Ravenna. When he was twenty, his father killed a kinsman in a duel, and Romuald entered the Benedictine monastery of Sant'Apoliinare in Classe to perform a forty-day penance for this act. The monastery had a profound effect on him. At the end of the penance he decided to stay, took monastic vows, and entered enthusiastically into a rigorous observance of the Benedictine rule. However, reading the lives of the desert fathers led Romuald to criticize what he considered laxity at Sant'Apollinare, and he soon left the monastery to live as an anchorite in the marshes surrounding Ravenna. About 975, Romuald became the disciple of the hermit Marino and followed him to the vicinity of Venice.
Through Marino, Romuald was drawn into the circle of Venice's doge, Pietro Orseolo, who was then undergoing a religious conversion. When Orseolo abdicated to join the monastery at Cuxa in the Pyrenees, Romuald and Marino went with him. Romuald remained at Cuxa for ten years, studying the works in its library in order to refine his understanding of the monastic ideal. Although the final shape of his reform was the product of many years of experimentation, the basic notions seem to have been formulated at Cuxa. Romuald's foundations would be among the first expressions of an eleventh-century monastic reform movement that sought to revive the primitive rigor of early Egyptian eremitism.
Romuald returned to Italy on the death of Orseolo in 988. He spent the next ten years based in Pereum, a hermitage in Ravenna's marshes, while he wandered the Apennines seeking followers, founding monasteries, and experimenting with monastic organization. Like a number of other reformers of his time, Romuald was determined to develop a greater spirit of contemplation in monastic houses; accordingly, he established hermitages and cenobitic communities together. But unlike other reformers, Romuald did not believe that a cenobitic life was a necessary prerequisite for an eremitic life. At his foundations, promising candidates were immediately introduced to the life of the hermit. iMoreover, he did not subordinate the hermitage to the abbot of the monastery but rather put the cenobites under the moral authority of an experienced hermit. The monastery and hermitage were supposed to complement each other in drawing all monks toward the eremitical ideal of fasting, silence, and solitude.
In 998 Emperor Otto III appointed Romuald abbot of Sant'-Apollinare in Classe, but the monks' resistance to his austerity ied to his resignation within a year. He then moved to the environs of Rome, near the imperial court, and soon attracted the patronage of several of the emperor's courtiers. When civil unrest at Rome drove the court to Ravenna in 1001, Romuald followed, again settling in Pereum. Romuald now had significant support from the empire. Followers flocked to him. Many, including the imperial chaplain Bruno of Querfurt, went as missionaries to convert the Slavs, inspired by Romuald's insistence that preaching and conversion were the ultimate role of the monk and hermit.
After the death of Otto III in 1002, Romuald left Pereum to wander again in the Apennines. Sometime between 1010 and 1020, he founded a small monastery and hermitage at Camaldoli near Arezzo. This influential institution, famous for its rigor, proved to be his most lasting contribution to eremitical reform. Romuald died at Val di Castro in 1027. By then, his other foundations were already looking to Camaldoli for leadership, and other monastic reformers were drawing inspiration from it.
Romuald had not intended to establish an order separate from the Benedictines. However, after his death the thirty-odd monasteries he had founded drew together around Camaldoli, in part to protect the peculiar customs Romuald had established for them. By the late eleventh century, the Gregorian popes were treating them as an order. The most famous Camaldolese monk, Peter Damian, drew many of his reforming ideals from Romuald. Peter wrote a very influential biography of Romuald in 1042.
See also Camaldoli; Damian, Peter; Monasticism; Orseolo Family
THOMAS TURLEY
Tabacco, Giovanni, ed. Petri Damiani Vita beati Romualdi. Fonti per la Storia d'ltalia, 94. Rome: Isututo Storico Italiano per il Medio Evo, 1957.
Belisle, Peter Damian. "Primitive Romauldian/Camaldolese Spirituality." Cistercian Studies Quarterly, 31, 1996, pp. 413-429.
Kurze, Wilhelm. "Campus Malduli: Die Frühgeschichte Camaldolis." Quellen und Forschungen aus Italieniscben Archiven und Bibliotheken, 44, 1964, pp. 1-34.
Leclercq, Jean. "Saint Romuald et le monachisme missionaire." Revue Bénédictine, 77, 1962, pp. 307-322.
Phipps, Colin. "Romuald—Model Hermit: Eremitical Theory in Saint Peter Damian's Vita Beati Romualdi, Chapters 16-27." Studies in Church History, 22, 1985, pp. 65-77.
Schmidtmann, Christian. "Romuald von Camoldi: Modell einer eremitischen Existenz in 10./11. Jahrhundert." Studia Monastica, 39, 1997, pp. 329-338.
Tabacco, Giovanni. Romualdo di Ravenna. Turin: Bottega d'Erasmo, 1968.
Romulus Augustulus (r. October 475-September 476) is generally considered the last western Roman emperor, although he ruled as a figurehead and his power was never formally recognized in the east. His father, Orestes, overthrew Emperor Julius Nepos and placed Romulus Augustulus on the throne. Subsequently, Orestes's troops, led by Flavius Odoavcar (Odoacer), rebelled against Orestes and Romulus. Orestes was executed in August 476 at Piacenza (Placentia). Odovacar forced Romulus Augustulus to abdicate, gave him an annual allowance of 6,000 gold pieces, and sent him to live at Misenum in Campania.
See also Odovacar; Orestes
JENNIFER A. REA
Bury, John. History of the Later Roman Empire: From the Death of Theodosius I to the Death of Justinian, Vol. 1. New York: Dover, 1958.
Grant, Michael. The Roman Emperors. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1985.
Rothari (d. 652, r. 636-652) was duke of Brescia before becoming king of the Lombards. His selection as king was legitimized by his marriage with Gundeberga, who was a sister of one former -dng (Adaloald) and the widow of another (Arioald). Rothari is sne of the few Lombard kings who is known with certainty to nave been Arian Christian rather than Catholic. Like Alboin, Rathari became a hero—Rother—in medieval epics.
Rothari is best-known for the law book issued from his court and known as Rothari's Edict. This is a compilation of customary Lombard law, a law that applied only to Lombards. Non-Lombards in the Lombard kingdom continued to use their own law, whether Gothic or Roman, as is apparent from the content of the Lombard laws and from the survival of eighth- and ninth-century charters and court records in which individuals identify themselves as living by Lombard, Gothic, or Roman law.
Rothari is usually identified with the pro-Lombard taction in the Lombard kingdom, and his Edict is mainly a codification of Germanic custom—one of the best-organized of the barbarian law codes. However, the Edict does reflect considerable Roman influence. Royal legislation is itself a Roman act, the language of the Edict is Latin, and the clear-cut organization of the code into separate categories is almost certainly based on the Roman model. Although we do not know the legal personnel who served Rothari, they were almost certainly Roman or trained by Romans.
Rothari was succeeded by a son who was killed after a very-brief reign.
See also Lombard Law; Lombards
KATHERINE FISCHER DREW
Hartmann, L. M. Italy under the Lombards. Cambridge Medieval History, Vol. 2. New York: Macmillan, 1913.
Paul the Deacon. History of the Lombards, trans. William Dudley Foulke, ed, Edward Peters. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1974.
Wickham, Chris. Early Medieval Italy: Central Power and Local Society, 400—1000. Totowa, N.J.: Barnes and Noble, 1981.
Rudolf II (d. 937, r. 911 or 912-937) was a duke and king of Burgandy and a king (922-926) of Italy. Burgundy was one of several petty kingdoms emerging in the turbulent years after 887 as Charlemagne's empire broke up. It roughly corresponded with what later became the Franche-Comté, or "free county," of Burgundy. In December 921 or January 922, disgruntled nobles led by Adalbert of Ivrea called on Rudolf to overthrow Berengar of Friuli, who had been the Lombard king and emperor since 915 (however, the western emperorship by now meant little). Berengar was defeated by Rudolf in 922 and 923 and was murdered in 924. The Lombard nobles, as treacherous as ever, invited Hugh of Aries into Italy in 926. Hugh drove Rudolf back to Burgundy but evidently surrendered Provence in return for Rudolf s promise never again to invade Italy.
See also Berengar I of Friuli; Frankish Kingdom; Hugh of Arles; Lombards
MARTIN ARBAGI
Bohmer, J. F., ed. Regesta Imperii, Vol. 2(5), Die Regesten des Kaiserreichs unter den Karolingem, 751—918: Die Regesten des Regnum Italiae und der burgundischen Regna, ed. Herbert Zielinski. Cologne: Bohlau, 1991. (New edition.)
Catahgus Regum Langobardorum et Italicorum Lombardus. Monuments Germaniae Historica, Scriptores Rerum Langobardicarum et Italicarum Saeculi VI-IX. Hannover: Hahn, 1878, pp. 504-517.
Liudprand (or Liutprand), Bishop of Cremona. Antapodosis. In Die Werke Liudprands von Cremona, ed. J. Becker, 3rd ed. Scriptorum Rerum Germanicarum in Usum Schoiarum ex Monumentis Germaniae Historicis Separatim Editi. Hannover and Leipzig: Hahn, 1915.
—. Antapodosis, or, Tit-for-Tat. In The Works of Liudprand of Cremona, trans. F. A. Wright. Broadway Medieval Library. London: Routledge, 1930.
Halphen, Louis. "The Kingdom of Burgundy." In The Cambridge Medieval History, Vol. 3, Germany and the Western Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1922, ch. 6.
Hiestand, Rudolf. Byzanz und das Regnum italicum im 10. Jahrhundert. Geist und Werke zu Zeit. Zurich: Fretz and Wasmuth, 1964.
Kreutz, Barbara. Before the Normans: Southern Italy in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991.
Previte-Orton, Charles. "Italy in the Tenth Century." In The Cambridge Medieval History, Vol. 3, Germany and the Western Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1922, ch. 7.
Rufinus (d. before 1192) was born outside Assisi in the rirst quarter of the twelfth century. He studied theology and canon law at Bologna under Gratian and first appears as a master there c. 1150. His known students included Stephen ofTournai and John of Faenza.
Rufinus's most important contribution was his commentary on canon law, Summa decretorum, published between 1157 and 1159. This was the first full-iength commentary on Gratian's Decretum and was highly influential through the early thirteenth century (the third part of John of Faenza's Summa merely copies Rufinus). The work was also original in applying the current exegetical methods of the civil lawyers and the most recent scholarship (including Peter Lombard's Sentences, 1155-1158).
Rufinus was consecrated bishop of Assisi sometime before 1179. At this time he wrote De bono pacis, an exposition of Augustine's De civitate dei. In 1179, Rufinus delivered a sermon at the opening of Lateran III. In this sermon, as in his Summa, he urged ecclesiastical reform according to canon law. Ecclesiastical jurisdiction, as Rufinus understood it, was divided between the auctoritas of the pope and the administratio of the emperor. This strong assertion of papal supremacy would greatly influence later decretists. Between 1180 and 1186, Rufinus was elevated to the archbishopric of Sorrento.
See also Gratian
LOUIS I. HAMILTON
Rufinus. Summa: Die Summa Decretorum des Magister Rufinus, ed. and intro. Heinrich Singer. Paderborn, 1902. (Reprints, Aalen: Scientia Verlag; Paderborn: F. Schöningh, 1963.)
—. De bono pads, ed. Roman Deutinger. Monumenca Germaniae Historica, Studien und Texte, 17. Hannover: Hahn, 1997.
Benson, Robert L. "Rufin." In Dictionnaire de droit canonique, Vol. 7. 1965.
—. The Bishop Elect: A Study in Medieval Ecclesiastical Office. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1968.
Ferruolo, Stephen C. "Rufinus." In Dictionary of the Middle Ages, Vol. 10. 1988.
Morin, Germain. "Le discours d'ouverture du Concile général de Latran (1179) et 1'oeuvre littéraire de maitre Rufin, évèque d'Assise." Atti della Pontificia Accademia Romana di Archeologia, Series 3, Memorie, 2, 1928.
Ruggeri Apugliese (thirteenth century) was from Siena, and it is generally assumed that he was a giullare (a jongleur or minstrel), though of a relatively high social rank. There is little reason to follow Torraca (1902) in doubting his existence. Ruggeri is recorded in the Vatican Codex (Lat. 3793) as the author of a poem known as the Canzone de oppositis: Umile sono ed orgoglioso. His play on oppositions is directly inspired by Raimbaut de Vaqueiras's poem Savis e folles, humils et orgulbos. Ruggeri's can-zoniere is limited in scope but quite diversified, comprising, in addition to the Canzone de oppositis, a sermon, L'amore di questo mondo è da fugire; a parody of Christ's passion, Genti, intendete questo sermone; and a political tenzone exchanged with Provenzan Salvani.
See also Italian Prosody; Raimbaut de Vaqueiras
FREDE JENSEN
Bertoni, Giulio. Il Duecento. Milan: Vallardi, 1947, pp. 203-204.
Lazzeri, Gerolamo. Antologia dei primi secoli della letteratura italiana. Milan: Hoepli, 1942, pp. 652-661.
Torraca, Francesco. Studi su la lirica italiana del Duecento. Bologna: Zanichelli, 1902, pp. 125-126.
Ruggero d'Amici (thirteenth century) was from Messina and owned feudal lands in Calabria. As one of the highest dignitaries at Frederick's court, he was giustiziere of Sicily in 1239 and 1240 and then capitano of Sicily and Calabria until the end of 1241, at which time he was sent as ambassador to Sultan Malek-Saleh in Egypt, where he remained until the following year. Ruggero was accused of participation in a conspiracy against the emperor and was imprisoned in 1246. It is not clear whether he died in prison or was executed. Two canzoni—Sovente Amore n'ha ric- cuto manti and Lo meo core che si stava—are attributed to Ruggero in the Vatican Codex (Lat. 3793), and a few others are of dubious attribution.
See also Italian Prosody; Scuola Poetica Siciliana
FREDE JENSEN
Bertoni, Giulio. Il Duecento. Milan: Vallardi, 1947, p. 105.
Lazzeri, Gerolamo. Antologia dei primi secoli delta letteratura italiana, Milan: Hoepli, 1942, pp. 568-570.
Monaci, Ernesto. Crestomazia italiana dei primi secoli, rev. ed., ed. Felice Arese. Rome, Naples, and Città di Castello: Società Ed. Dante Alighieri, 1955, pp. 101-102.
Torraca, Francesco. Studi su U lirica italiana del Duecento. Bologna: Zanichelli, 1902, pp. 113-117.
Ruggerone da Palermo (thirteenth century) remains virtually unknown. Some scholars have identified him with a frate Ruggero who was sent to the king of Tunisia by Frederick II to obtain the Book of Sidrac. Scandone (1904) identifies him with a judge from Palermo, Ruggero de Panormo. Only one poem— the canzone Ben mi deggio alegrare—is unquestionably his; the crusade poem Oi lasso non pensai, though attributed to him in the Vatican Codex (Lat. 3793), was more probably written by Frederick, as asserted in the Florentine manuscript (Laurenziano Rediano 9). In Ben mi deggio alegrare, the poet sings of the joy that love has finally brought him after a long period of torment. The poem ends on a moralizing note, urging lovers to endure suffering in order to reap the reward that is waiting at the end: dolci è lo male ond'omo aspetta bene!
See also Italian Poetry: Lyric; Scuola Poetica Siciliana
FREDE JENSEN
Scandone, F. "Notizie biografiche di rimatori della scuola siciliana." Studi di Letteratura Italiana, 5, 1904, pp. 334-335.
See Peasants
The Florentine poet Rustico Filippi (Rustico di Filippo, c. 1230-c. 1280 or 1285) is credited with initiating the comic style in the medieval Italian lyric. Rustico wrote fifty-seven sonnets transmitted by the Vaticano manuscript Latino 3793, and a tenzone with Bondie Dietaiuti found in three other codices. Half of his sonnets were written in the serious style of courtly love; the other half provide one of the earliest examples of the comic, or jocose, style in Italian literature. Brunetto Latini, who considered Rustico one of his closest friends and an accomplished poet, dedicated the Favolello to him. Rustico was also the acknowledged teacher of Jacopo da Lèona and is the protagonist of a comic sonnet by Jacopo. Rustico was an ardent Ghibelline.
Rustico's comic sonnets fall into two categories: personal invective, and caricature directed against Florentines of all ages and social conditions. Among the figures he caricatured are warriors who inspire laughter rather than awe, a miser, a cuckolded husband, a man who is the paradigm of laziness, people with offensive body odors, libertines on the prowl, and prostitutes. Rustico displays a great talent for euphemism and uses a plethora of creative metaphors, similes, paraphrases, and hyperbole to describe his characters, the sexual act, and certain parts of the human anatomy. Several of the comic sonnets are linked. For example, there is a three-sonnet group that begins with Poi che guerito son de le mascelle, recounting the implausible proposals made by a matchmaker to a poor father with two daughters; and there is a two-sonnet group beginning with Su, donna Gemma, co la farinata, which ponders the suspicious reasons behind the sudden loss of weight of a young girl named Mita. The best-known of Rustico's comic sonnets, Quando Dïo messer Messerin fece, describes Albizzo de' Caponsacchi as a unique combination of bird, beast, and man—a miracle of God's creation.
In the sonnet describing "messer Messerin," and in other sonnets, Rustico frequently compares the targets of his caricatures to animals, at a time when such comparisons were in vogue in the serious courtly love lyric. Whereas in his comic poetry Rustico mocked the overuse of animal comparisons, he avoided them altogether in his twenty-eight sonnets and the tenzone in the traditional courtly style. In these compositions, he experimented with various rhetorical devices in order to achieve more drama and more narrative flexibility. Among his innovations, he broke the unity of address, extended personification from the conventional god of love to other items involved in the psychomachia of courtly love (the heart, the eyes), and abandoned the extended simile. One sonnet that illustrates all these elements is Amor fa nel mio cor fermo soggiorno. The integration of dramatic techniques into the lyric, and the cultivation of a kinetic rather than a descriptive style, reached a culmination in the poetry of the dolce stil nuovo. Thus Rustico was an innovator in introducing comic poetry to Italian literature and, to a lesser extent, in the development of the love lyric.
See also Italian Poetry: Comic
JOAN H. LEVIN
Contini, Gianfranco. Poeti del Duecento, Vol. 2. Milan and Naples: Ricciardi, 1960, pp. 353-364.
Federici, Vincenzo. Le rime di Rustico di Filippo, rimatore fiorentino del sec. XIII. Bergamo: Istituto Italiano d'Arti Grafiche, 1899.
Figurelli, Fernando. La poesia comico-giocosa dei primi due secoli. Naples: Pironti, 1960, pp. 74—112.
Marti, Mario. Poeti giocosi del tempo di Dante. Milan: Rizzoli, 1956, pp. 29-91.
Massèra, Aldo Francesco. Sonetti burlescbi e realistici dei primi due secoli. Bari: Laterza, 1920. (See also rev. ed, ed. Luigi Russo, 1940, Vol. 1, pp. 1-30.)
Rustico Filippi. Sonetti, ed. Pier Vincenzo Mengaldo. Turin: Einaudi, 1971.
Vitale, Maurizio. Rimatori comico-realistici. Turin: UTET, 1956, pp. 99-197. (Reprint, 1976.)
Dante and His Circle, with the Italian Poets Preceding Him (1100— 1200—1300), trans. Dante Gabriel Rossetti. London: Ellis and Elvey, 1892, pp. 360-362.
Poems from Italy, ed. William Jay Smith and Dana Gioia. Saint Paul, Minn.: New Rivers, 1985, pp. 32-33.
Tusiani, Joseph. The Age of Dante: An Anthology of Early Italian Poetry Translated into English Verse and with an Introduction. New York: Baroque, 1974, pp. 56-57.
Baldelli, Ignazio. Dante e i poen horentini del Duecento. In Lectura Dantis Scaligera. Florence: Le Monnier, 1968.
Buzzetti Gallarati, Silvia. "Sull'organizzazione dei discorso comico nella produzione giocosa di Rustico Filippi." Medioevo Romanzo, 9(2), 1984, pp. 189-213.
Casini, Tomrnaso. "Un poeta umorista del secolo decimoterzo (Rustico di Filippo)." In Scritti danteschi. Città di Castello: Lapi, 1913, pp. 225-255.
Folena, Gianfranco. "Cultura poetica dei primi fiorentini." Giornale Storico della Letteratura Italiana, 147, 1970, pp. 1-42.
Kleinhenz, Christopher. The Early Italian Sonnet: The First Century (1220-1321). Collezione di Studi e Testi, 2. Lecce: Miiella, 1986.
Levin, Joan H. Rustico di Filippo and the Florentine Lyric Tradition. American University Studies, 2(16). New York: Peter Lang, 1986.
Marti, Mario. "La coscienza stilistica di Rustico di Filippo e la sua poesia." In Cultura e stile nei poeti giocosi del tempo di Dante. Pisa: Nistri-Lischi, 1953.
Petrocchi, Giorgio. "I poeti realisti." In Storia della. letteratura italiana, Vol. 1, Le origini e il Duecento, ed. Emiiio Cecchi and Natalino Sapegno. Milan: Garzanti, 1965, pp. 575-607. (Reprint, 1979.)
Quaglio, Antonio Enzo. "La poesia realistica." In La letteratura italiana: storia e testi, Vol. 1(2), Il Duecento: Dalle origini a Dante. Bari: Laterza, 1970, pp. 183-253.
Russo, Vittorio. " 'Verba obscena' e comico: Rustico Filippi." Filologia e Critica, 5, 1980, pp. 169-182.
Savona, Eugenio. "Rustico di Filippo e la poesia comico-realistica." In Cultura e ideologia nell'età comunale: Ricerche sulla letteratura italiana dell'età comunale. Il Portico, 57. Ravenna: Longo, 1975, pp. 57-70.
Suitner, Franco. La poesia satirica e giocosa nell'età dei comuni. Padua: Antenore, 1983.