Toynbee "Federigo_2"

Frederick Barbarossa had been succeeded by his son Henry VI (1190-1197), on whose death the succession to the Empire was disputed by Henry's brother, Philip, duke of Swabia, and Otto, son of Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony and Bavaria. The war between the rival emperors lasted till 1208, when Philip was assassinated and Otto IV, the Guelph, became sole emperor. In 1211, Otto, having quarrelled with Pope Innocent III, was excommunicated and deposed by him. On the invitation of the partisans of the Hohenstaufen Frederick of Palermo, the young king of Sicily son of Henry VI, crossed the Alps into Germany, and was elected emperor as Frederick II (1212), being crowned at Rome, Nov. 22, 1220. Though he entered the field as champion of the Holy See against the excommunicated Otto, Frederick soon himself became its enemy, and finally its victim. The imperial crown and that of the Two Sicilies could not be in the possession of one sovereign, least of all of a Hohenstaufen, without endangering the independence of the papacy, and before he had been emperor many years Frederick was plunged into a deadly struggle with the Church, which ended only with his death.

. . . it was Frederick's peculiar misfortune to have given the Popes a hold over him which they well knew how to use. In a moment of youthful enthusiasm he had taken the cross from the bands of an eloquent monk, and his delay to fulfil the vow was branded as impious neglect. Excommunicated by Gregory IX for not going to Palestine, he went, and was excommunicated for going: having concluded an advantageous peace, he sailed for Italy, and was a third time excommunicated for returning. [J. Bryce, The Holy Roman Empire (8th ed.; New York and London, 1904), p. 209.]

After having been repeatedly placed under the ban of the Holy See (in 1227, 1238, 1239 and 1243), Frederick was at last (in 1245) formally deposed by Innocent IV at the Council of Lyons; he, however, defied the Pope, who vainly attempted to raise Germany against him, and maintained the struggle until it was ended by his death at Fiorentino on Dec. 13, 1250.

The character of Frederick is one of extraordinary interest and versatility, and contemporary opinion is expressed in the words stupor mundi et immutator mirabilis. Licentious and luxurious in his manner, cultured and catholic in his tastes, he united in his person the most diverse qualities. His Sicilian court was a centre of intellectual activity. Michael Scot, the translator of some treatises of Aristotle and of the commentaries of Averroes, Leonard of Pisa, who introduced Arabic numerals and algebra to the West, and other scholars, Jewish and Mohammedan as well as Christian were welcome at his court. Frederick himself had a knowledge of six languages, was acquainted with mathematics, philosophy and natural history, and took an interest in medicine and architecture. In 1224 he founded the university of Naples, and he was a liberal patron of the medical school at Salerno. He formed a menagerie of strange animals, and wrote a treatise on falconry (De arte venandi cum avibus) which is remarkable for its accurate observation of the habits of birds. It was at his court, too, that--as Dante points out--Italian poetry had its birth. Pier della vigna there wrote the first sonnet, and Italian lyrics by Frederick himself are preserved to us. His wives were kept secluded in oriental fashion, a harem was maintained at Lucera and eunuchs were a prominent feature of his household. His religious ideas have been the subject of much controversy. Frederick's rule in Germany and Italy was a failure, but this fact may be accounted for by the conditions of the time and the inevitable conflict with the papacy. In Germany the enactments of 1220 and 1231 contributed to the distintegration of the Empire and the fall of the Hohenstaufen, while conflicting interests made the government of Italy a problem of exceptional difficulty. In Sicily Frederick was more successful. He quelled disorder, and under his rule the island was prosperous and contented. His ideas of government were those of an absolute monarch, and he probably wished to surround himself with some of the pomp which had encircled the older emperors of Rome. His chief claim to fame, perhaps, is as a lawgiver. The code of laws which he gave to Sicily in 1231 bears the impress of his personality and has been described as 'the fullest and most adequate body of legislation promulgated by any western ruler since Charlemagne'. (Encyc. Brit., 1957.)

Frederick II is referred to by D. as il secondo Federico, [Inf. x. 119]; Federigo, [Inf. xiii. 59]; [Inf. xxiii. 66]; [Purg. xvi. 117]; Federigo di Soave, Conv. IV. iii. 6; Federicus Cesar, V.E. I. xii. 4; Cesar, Epist. vi. 19; Cesare, [Inf. xiii. 65]; Augusto, [Inf. xiii. 68]; il terzo vento di Soave, [Par. iii. 119-120]; lo imperadore, Conv. IV. iii. 5, Conv. IV. x. 3 (cf. Rime lxxxii. 21, Conv. IV. ii. 1, Conv. IV. x. 5).

D., accepting the contemporary estimate of Frederick's religious opinions, places him among the Heretics in Circle VI of Hell, where he is named by Farinata as being with himself and the Cardinal Ottaviano degli Ubaldini and 'more than a thousand others', [Inf. x. 118-119] [Epicurei: Eretici]; his secretary, Pier della vigna (in Round 2 of Circle VII of Hell), mentions him in connexion with his own disgrace and suicide, [Inf. xiii. 58-69] [Pier della Vigna]; his punishment of traitors in capes of lead, [Inf. xxiii. 66] (see below), Marco Lombardo (in Circle III of Purgatory) refers to his wars with the Church in Lombardy and Romagna (though some think the reference is to the wars betwecn Barbarossa and the Lombard League), [Purg. xvi. 117] [Federigo_1]; Piccarda (in the Heaven of the Moon) refers to him, in connexion with his mother Constance, as the third emperor of the Swabian or Hohenstaufen line (he was actually the fourth, but Barbarossa's uncle and predecessor, Conrad III, was never crowned at Rome, and consequently never assumed the title of emperor), and the last powerful emperor, [Par. iii. 120] (cf. Conv. IV. iii. 6: Federigo di Soave, ultimo imperadore de li Romani--ultimo dico per rispetto al tempo presente, non ostante che Ridolfo e Andolfo e Alberto poi eletti siano, appresso la sua morte e de li suoi discendenti) [Hohenstaufen]; his definition of nobility (which is in fact Aristotle's; cf. Mon. II. iii. 3, from {Pol. iv. 8}) quoted Rime lxxxii. 21-24; and discussed, Conv. IV. iii. 5-6, Conv. iv. x. 3 [Nobilità: Politica]; his court and that of his son Manfred the focus of Italian letters, whence vernacular Italian poetry was commonly known as Sicilian, V.E. I. xii. 4 [Sicilianus]; his siege of Parma and building of the fort of Victoria, Epist. vi. 19 [Victoria].

The torture of the leaden cape, said to have been devised by Frederick II for the punishment of traitors, to which D. refers ([Inf. xxiii. 66]), is thus described by Lana, whose account is copied by subsequent commentators:

. . . è da sapere che lo imperadore Federigo secondo usava di fare fare giustizia a quelli che sommo peccato commetteano contra la corona, in questo modo: elli facea fare di piombo una coverta al giudicato, la qual tutto lo covria e questa era grossa circa un'oncia; poi facea mettere tal giudicato in una caldera, e questa cappa di piombo indosso a colui, poi facea fare fuoco sotto la detta caldera: per lo fuoco si liquefacca lo ditto piombo, e menava a pezzo a pezzo la carne di quello giuso, sì che infine bollia lo piombo e 'l giudicato insieme: lo quale giudizio non era senza smisurata pena.

The punishment of the cappa plumbea (the exact nature of which is uncertain) was a recognized one in the Middle Ages, as appears from a document (dated 1377) quoted by Du Cange (s.v. Capa), in which it is said of a certain evil-doer:

Se nostre saint pere le Pape savoit l'estat et la vie dont il vivoit, il le feroit mourir en la Chappe de plonc.

Villani gives the following account of Frederick:

Questo Federigo . . . fu uomo di grande affare e di gran valore, savio di scrittura, e di senno naturale, universale in tutte cose; seppe la lingua latina, e la nostra volgare, tedesco, e francesco, greco, e saracinesco, e di tutte virtudi copioso, largo e cortese in donare, prode e savio in arme, e fu molto temuto. E fu dissoluto in lussuria in più guise, e tenea molte concubine e mammalucchi a guisa de' Saracini: in tutt'i diletti corporali volle abbondare, e quasi vita epicuria tenne, non faccendo conto che mai fosse altra vita; e questa fu l'una principale cagione perchè venne nimico de' cherici e di santa Chiesa. ({Chron. vi. 1.})

In connexion with the placing of F. among the 'Epicureans' of Circle VI, the testimony of Salimbene is of interest:

Erat enim epycureus, et ideo quidquid poterat invenire in divina Scriptura per se et per sapientes suos quod faceret ad ostendendum quod non esset alia vita post mortem, totum inveniebat.

Also, in a sirventes by Ugo di Sain Circ, it is said of Frederick:

Ni vida apres mort ni paradis non cre:
E dis c' om es nienz despueis que pert l'ale.
['Un sirventes vueill faire', in Miscellanea Caix-Canello (Firenze, 1886), 250-251.]

Himself an accomplished poet (several of his canzoni have been preserved), Frederick was a liberal patron of men of letters, as well as of all who in any way excelled in the arts to which he was devoted:

. . . la gente ch' avea bontade, venia a lui da tutte parti, perchè l'uomo donava volentieri, e mostrava belli sembianti a chi avesse alcuna speziale bontà. A lui venieno sonatori, trovatori e belli favellatori, uomini d'arti, giostratori, schermitori, d'ogni maniera gente (Cento novelle antiche XXI.)