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Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, also called Stupor mundi (Wonder of the World), was a notable European ruler who left a controversial political and cultural legacy. Considered by some to be "the most brilliant of medieval German monarchs, and probably of all medieval rulers", and admired for his multifaceted activities in the fields of government building, legislative work, cultural patronage and science,[2][3] he has also been criticized for his cruelty,[citation needed] and his neglect of Germany in favour of his Sicilian affairs.[4]
In Italy, the emperor gained a split image, with one element being favoured over the other depending on the era and the region: tyrant, heretic, enlightened despot, Puer Apulia (Boy from Apulia), and father of the Fatherland. Modern scholars generally praise the emperor's many talents, but the degree Frederick's actions and attitude can be considered to be a break from contemporary norms, as well as his contribution to contemporary advancement of knowledge (in the context of Sicilian and Hohenstaufen legacies, as well as cultural developments by other courts) is often subject to debates.
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Ernst Kantorowicz's biography, Frederick the Second, original published in 1927, is a very influential work in the historiography of the emperor. Kantorowicz praises Frederick as a genius, who created the "first western bureaucracy", an "intellectual order within the state" that acted like "an effective weapon in his fight with the Church—bound together from its birth by sacred ties in the priestly-Christian spirit of the age, and uplifted to the triumphant cult of the Deity Justitia."[5] Kantorowicz's writings about Frederick were abused during the Nazi period for propaganda purpose. Joseph Mali and Yôsef Malî argue that Frederick II were not important for the Nazis the way Frederick Barbarossa or Karl the Great, as exemplars of pure Aryanness, were though. They also note that while Kantorowicz endorsed Burckhardt's thinking, that Frederick was the prototypical modern ruler, whose Gewaltstaat later became the model of tyrannies for all Renaissance princes, Kantorowicz primarily saw Frederick as the last and greatest Christian emperor, who embraced "Medieval World Unity".[6]
Thomas Curtis Van Cleve's 1972 The Emperor Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, Immutator Mundi also acknowledges the emperor's genius, as a ruler, lawgiver and also as a scientist.[7] Karl Leyser opines that Kantorowicz and Cleve as well as other historians are too hagiographic. Leyser writes that Frederick was an individual with many gifts, but was "neither likeable nor reassuring", with a personality damaged greatly during his terrible childhood. Leyser also points out that Cleve exaggerates the role of Frederick's court in the transmission of Aristotelean and Arabic knowledge to Western court: Frederick's court was important but did not play the leading role, let alone monopolizing this process.[8]
In 1992, David Abulafia wrote a revisionist work which argues that Frederick was not a rationalist or an early free-thinker, but a medieval ruler concerned with dynastic goals and also a "victim of his dual inheritance", who was forced to act in his own defense in front of popes who were determined to destroy his power.[9] Regarding his cultural activities, Abulafia opines that "Frederick's cultural patronage was a pale shadow of that of his Norman ancestors" and that his reign marked "the end, not the revival, of convivencia in his southern kingdom."[10]
Dorothea Weltecke notes that despite Abulafia's effort to destroy what he saw as German mystification of a "medieval emperor", most historians today still see Frederick as a man who transcended his time and shared our values of secularism, tolerance and rationalism. Weltecke opines that Frederick's diverse style of ruling in his different lands and his ability to adapt make it difficult to present in a coherent manner his politics, let alone his personality, that in his time, already provoked either "profound adoration or vehement rejection". Regarding his role in Arabic-Christian transfer of knowledge though, Weltecke writes that the Medieval Christian culture was not a monolithic entity unanimously hostile to Muslims, thus it was not necessary for Frederick to possess a hybrid personality to be the competent diplomat and promoter of science he was. Other forces in Latin states sought Muslim cooperation against Frederick, while other religious and secular figures like Alfonso IX of León also played a role in the emergence of universities and the transfer of knowledge from the Islamic world.[11]
Regarding Frederick's charters of 1220 and 1231/1232 (that granted princes great privileges that facilitating territorialization in the Empire), although it is not denied that the strengthening of spiritual (and princely in general) authority came along with the weakening of central power,[12][13] recent scholarship tends to point out that Frederick only confirmed an already existing reality - the Confoederatio of 1220 only collected and repeated existing individual privileges. Wilson does not see the situation as a negative development, but rather the representation of a division of labour between emperor and princes, which was generally complementing rather than contradicting. Fried writes that Frederick did want to safeguard imperial privileges, but ultimately he had to accept the situation.[14][15][16]
Interest in Frederick (usually called Federico II di Svevia) from Italian scholars is also very strong, especially in Apulia, where his image has become a foundation for unity.[17] Kurstjens notes that, although vilified in Northern Italy and generally controversial, Frederick is still viewed unanimously as the founder of the Italian language.[18]
According to Roberto Delle Donne, historically, Frederick had been vilified by the Church as a tyrant. From the eighteenth century and especially with the Risorgimento in the nineteenth century, many scholars saw Frederick in a different light. Pietro Giannone's great work Istoria civile del Regno di Napoli (1723) praised Frederick for being an "advocate of jurisdictionalism, centralizer and enlightened despot", as opposed to the past Spanish viceroyalty and the contemporary Emperor Charles VI. Ludovico Antonio Muratori, in his Annali d'Italia (1743–1749), publicized the figure of Frederick as a ruler with “a big heart, great intellectual power and prudence, as well as a love of belles-lettres, which he was the first to bring into his Reich and spread there, in addition to his sense of justice, which was why he was able to develop many optimal regulations, finally his knowledge of different languages...". During the Risorgimento, the new Ghibelline reinterpretation of Frederick II as the "Father of the Fatherland" was expressed most fully in Luigi Settembrini's “Lezioni di Letteratura Italiana", (written in 1848, published between 1866 and 1872): "Frederick II alone was able to create the unity of Italy, because he had the power, the right, the fortitude, because he was born and raised Italian, because he wanted his empire here."[19] Kurstjens also notes that, although his reputation in the North was worse than in the South, both due to his own actions in subjugating their cities and because of Northern Italians' ongoing conflicts with later emperors, with the rise of the Risorgimento, Frederick became a topical matter and came to be seen by many as the precursor to Italian unity.[17]
The 2008 book Lo strano caso di Federico II di Svevia. Un mito medievale nella cultura di massa by the Italian journalist Marco Brando addresses the matter of contemporary mythologization surrounding Frederick II. Brando was inspired by his mentor, the historian Raffaele Licinio. The book caused considerable backlash, especially from scholars in Apolia.[20]
An introduction to the 2014 work Federico II le nozze di Oriente e Occidente. L'età federiciana in terra di Brindisi by historian Antonio Mario Caputo reads:[21]
A man of controversial actions, he was a multifaceted personality, so complex as to raise passionate criticism or exaltation among opposing factions. "Miserly and angry", according to his Guelph detractors; "Wise, enlightened and dispenser of justice", for the Ghibellines. Among the first group, the Franciscan Salimbene de Adam stands out from Parma. He had no doubts about the morality of the emperor, calling him without moderate terms, "nonbeliever, cunning, shrewd, lustful, wicked", and again: "a virulent and accursed man, schismatic, heretic and epicurean". On the other hand, on the Ghibelline side, there was the exhilarating paean of the English monk Matthew Paris: "Among the princes of the earth, Federico is the greatest, stupor mundi and the miraculous transformer". The author of "De rebus gestis Friderici imperatori" gives excessive praises, that "he was a man of great heart and yet was able to temper his own magnanimity with the great wisdom within". The judgment of Giovanni Villani seems balanced in his Chronicle: "he was a man of great valor, wise in scripture and natural wisdom, he knew Latin and the vernacular, German and French, Greek and Saracen. And he was dissolute in lust in more ways, and he held many concubines and mamluks in the guise of Saracens; he wanted to abound in all bodily delights, and lived an almost epicurean life. And this was the main reason why he was an enemy of the clerics and of the Church ". His character, certainly, was with multiple contradictions: crusader in the Holy Land and simultaneously a friend of the Sultan of Egypt, anointed by the Lord and sympathizer of doctrines with the odor of heresy, absolute king in Sicily and feudal princeps in Germany. Thanks to his contribution, the "Sicilian school" was able to compete with the ones in Provence and Catalan. He favored the Islamic culture but sent for the concentration camps in Lucera more than fifteen thousand Saracens. Ultimately, a wonderful chameleon: he inherited from the Swabians ideals of imperial supremacy, from the Normans methods of centralized government, from Arabs love for philosophy and mathematics. Federico was also man of peace. He gave proof of that in 1228, when he landed in the Holy Land to take away the Holy Sepulcher from the infidels by obtaining Jerusalem through the diplomacy. His naturalistic interests and his passion for women must also be considered. The 'Puer Apuliae' was a promoter of young people; at his court he introduced many, entrusting them to the care of experts, so that they could refine their aptitudes and vocations. A complete and modern man Federico [...], who, if he had lived in our days, as well as arousing controversy and dissension, would have received mostly favors and would have been praised beyond measure [...].
In 2005, after an initiative by the Treccani, an encyclopaedia dedicated solely to Frederick II, named Enciclopedia fridericiana, was composed by a committee headed by Ortensio Zecchino.[22]
Frederick's national identity or cultural inclinations has always attracted international discussion. Historian James Bryce from the nineteenth century compared him with Otto III:
Out of the long array of the Germanic successors of Charles, he is, with Otto III, the only one who comes before us with a genius and a frame of character that are not those of a Northern or a Teuton. There dwelt in him, it is true, all the energy and knightly valour of his father Henry and his grandfather Barbarossa. But along with these, and changing their direction, were other gifts, inherited perhaps from his Italian mother and fostered by his education among the orange-groves of Palermo—a love of luxury and beauty, an intellect refined, subtle, philosophical. Through the mist of calumny and fable it is but dimly that the truth of the man can be discerned, and the outlines that appear serve to quicken rather than appease the curiosity with which we regard one of the most extraordinary personages in history. A sensualist, yet also a warrior and a politician; a profound lawgiver and an impassioned poet; in his youth fired by crusading fervour, in later life persecuting heretics while himself accused of blasphemy and unbelief; of winning manners and ardently beloved by his followers, but with the stain of more than one cruel deed upon his name, he was the marvel of his own generation, and succeeding ages looked back with awe, not unmingled with pity, upon the inscrutable figure of the last Emperor who had braved all the terrors of the Church and died beneath her ban, the last who had ruled from the sands of the ocean to the shores of the Sicilian sea. But while they pitied they condemned. The undying hatred of the Papacy threw round his memory a lurid light; him and him alone of all the imperial line, Dante, the worshipper of the Empire, must perforce deliver to the flames of hell.
Commenting on Olaf B. Rader's work Friedrich II. – Der Sizilianer auf dem Kaiserthron. Eine Biographie ("Frederick II, a Sicilian on the imperial throne. A biography", C.H. Beck, 2010), Georg Vogeler notes that explaining a person's actions in terms of regional cultural imprint is hardly a stable method, and stereotypes run counter to each other, too: Theo Broekmann's theory (that Rader relies upon) about the contemporary societies is that the ruler could settle power conflicts north of the Alps with ritual subjugation, while in the south he needed to exert his power consistently and strictly; meanwhile, Petrarch's interpretation of the situation is that Italians showed mercy, while German mistook it for weakness.[23]
While modern Germans tend to consider Frederick an Italian, like Caputo, German historians Kurstjens and Houben also agree that Frederick was a product of both worlds, a fact he was conscious about. Houben opines that, "Making the Kingdom of Sicily the basis of imperial policy was a pragmatic decision, in consideration of the resources available there, and a promising decision given the practical impossibility of being equally present across his empire, north and south of the Alps". Houben also stresses the transcultural dimension of Frederick, who as an intellectual, was also receptive to Islamic and Jewish influences.[24][25][a] Frederick's national "blurriness", as opines Hannes Obermair, contributed to his unfavorable perception compared to the better known and more streamlined Frederick II of Prussia.[27]
Frederick was a capable battlefield leader, able to manoeuvre and prevail in difficult situations. John Barker opines that his greatest victory was the battle in 1237 at Cortenuova, gained him primacy in Northern Italy for the rest of his reign.[28] Despite occasional setbacks such as the loss of the "Victoria" camp in 1248, he was able to subjugate large parts of the Romagna to improve the overall situation. He was preparing to invade Lyon when he died suddenly in December 1250. His death brought an end to the campaign and would ultimately lead to the end of the Hohenstaufen.[29][30] Daniel P. Franke compares Frederick with his grandfather Barbarossa. Franke opines that both emperors were capable commanders who made the best decisions possible in their most famous battles (Legnano and Cortenuova) despite the different outcomes. Frederick II won his campaign because his "diplomatic freedom of action" was better and he had a larger and more competent set of allies. Yet war did not prove to be the decisive modifier for both emperors. Despite Legnano, Barbarossa later was able to advance his goals a lot with (quiet and unheroic) diplomacy and statemanship, while in the long term, Frederick II's opponents recovered while the emperor suffered more personal trauma.[31]
Abulafia was one author who disparages Frederick's military skills, saying that he preferred civil affairs and hesitated to test himself in battle.[32]
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The excommunication of Frederick was rejected by many during his lifetime,[33] including some priests. An anecdote from the Church of Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois recounted: "[...] three centuries earlier, that a priest astonished his congregation — and afterwards, when the incident was reported, the whole of Europe — by his mode of pronouncing the excommunication decreed by Pope Innocent IV against the Emperor Frederick II. 'Hearken to me, my brethren,' he said. 'I am ordered to pronounce a terrible anathema against the Emperor Frederick to the accompaniment of bells and lighted candles. I am ignorant of the reasons on which this judgment is based. All I know is that discord and hatred exist between the Pope and the Emperor, and that they are accustomed to overwhelm each other with insults. Therefore I excommunicate, as far as lies in my power, the oppressor, and I absolve the one who is suffering a persecution so pernicious to the Christian religion.' ... The priest, as might have been expected, was rewarded by the Emperor and punished by the Pope."[34]
According to Kantorowicz, "Frederick was the last emperor to be deified or to find a place among the stars of heaven." Contemporaneous writers celebrated him as the Sun King and associated him Sol Invictus. His birthday was within a day of the birth of Christ and the Sun. After his death, he was prophesied to return to establish the kingdom of heaven. A legend foretold that Frederick would live three hundred and sixty-seven years, and impersonators still appeared years after his death, leaving many Floretines in doubt.
Meanwhile, his detractors saw in him the Antichrist.[36] His image as a tyrant was blended with the ancient figure of Nero. The Joachimites. expected Frederick to return not to restore the empire, but to complete the destruction of the degenerate Church. Later, in nationalist times, this myth was trasferred to his grandfather Frederick Barbarossa.[37] Petrarch also likened Frederick II and Nero, praising Frederick's patronage of the founders of Italian literature, but disturbed by the cruelty of Frederick to Pietro della Vigna, which evoked Nero and Seneca.[38]
In the fifteenth century, he was still identified as the Last World Emperor, who would fight the Antichrist. This belief created hope as well as fear, which was renewed when another Frederick was crowned emperor in 1452.[39][40][41]
Huub Kurstjens opines that Frederick was a mythomoteur, a myth-engine or the driving force behind myths, regarding which some historians blame Frederick himself as the creator.[42] Boccaccio exaggerated Constance's age when she gave birth to Frederick, calling her a "wrinkled old woman", and attached ruinous prophecy to Frederick's birth, that he would bring about the downfall of the Kingdom of Sicily.[43]
There are legends about him in Italy. Dante mentions the legend about one of his favorite methods of punishment, which was putting the accused inside leaden mantles and then throwing them into a fire.[44]
In Germany, legends tend to confuse Frederick with his grandfather, Frederick Barbarossa. The famous Kyffhäuser (see also: legends about Frederick Barbarossa) was originally about Frederick II, but later became primary associated with Barbarossa, as the figure of the grandson was gradually superseded by that of the grandfather.[45][46][17] In Italy, there is the corresponding legend of Frederick II sleeping under Mount Etna.[47][48]
Kantorowicz recounts a German legend: "In 1497 a carp was caught in a pond at Heilbronn, in whose gills, under the skin, a copper ring was fastened, with a Greek inscription which stated that Frederick II, with his own hand, had released this fish." The Humanists of the time decided that Frederick II, whose hands had the life-giving quality, wanted to promote the study of Greek in Germany.[49]
Frederick, as patron and architect, built many castles in Italy, in which he combined German, Italian, Arabic and classical Roman elements.[50][51]
Ubaldo Occhinegro considers the choice of "regular, symmetrical floor plans" as the result of organizational and technical considerations though: "Many researchers have misunderstood this choice as a simple rational or artistic will, connected with the eclectic figure of the Emperor, with his centralizing policy and pragmatic, forgetting, however, the contingent construction choices responding fully to the needs of Frederick. He had to prepare a powerful organizational machine that goes from the extraction of the stones, the pre-fabrication of the elements directly in the stone quarry, to the distribution and installation of them among the construction sites across the country [...] It is therefore logical that the provision and use of pre-fabricated elements, needed a project set on the basis of predetermined size and length ratios: a kind of standardization of that we'll meet only many years later in Catalan Gothic. It's for this reason that, comparing homogeneous architectural elements (windows, doors, arches and lintels) in different castles far from each other, many dimensions appear to be coincident."[53]
Frederick, a poet himself, promoted poetry in his court, which helped to nurture what would later become the Italian language.[56][57] He and his poets adopted and Italianized many forms and concepts of Occitan love poetry, thus starting the Italian lyric tradition.[58][59]
Frederick and his poets were also influenced by the Arab culture in their poetry. Giacomo da Lentini and his group seemed to utilize their knowledge about the way colloquial Arabic was used in the genre of zajal in their use of the Sicilian dialect.[60]
There were also links between Sicilian poetry and German minnesang, which in turn was inspired by the troubadours or trouvères brought to the court of Barbarossa by Frederick's grandmother Beatrix of Burgundy.[61]
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Main article: De arte venandi cum avibus |
The book De arte venandi cum avibus is the first treatise on the subject of falconry.[64] It is also "the first zoological treatise written in the critical spirit of modern science."[65]
The art of falconry had been brought to Italy by his grandfather Barbarossa.[66]
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In the poem, the emperor spurned "plans which had sprung up in him", "tender recollections" and "deep inner chiming" to focus on the "frightened fledgling falcon's sake, whose blood and worries he taxed himself relentlessly to grasp."
In exchange he too seemed borne aloft,
when the bird, to whom the lords give praise,
tossed radiantly from his hand, above
in that all-embracing springtime morning
dropped like an angel on the heron.(Translation by Edward Snow)
Dobyns remarks that the poem also reflects Rilke, who put aside his ambitions and family to focus on poetry, that drops upon the reader like the falcon on the heron.[158]
Museo Federico II Stupor Mundi is a Museum in Jesi, that is dedicated to the emperor.[170] There is also the Emperor Frederick II Museum in Lagopesole Castle, Province of Potenza.[171]
In April 2022, the Italian Cultural Institute in New York organized the exhibition "Constancia. Women and Power in the Mediterranean Empire of Frederick II" (the women referred here were Constance of Hauteville, (1154-1198), mother of Frederick II; Empress Constance of Aragon (1184 ca.-1222), his first wife; Empress Constance (1231 – circa 1307/13), daughter of Frederick II and Bianca Lancia, wife of Emperor of the East John III Ducas Vatatze; Queen Constance (1249-1300), daughter of Manfred.[172]
A 2022 series of international cultural events to promote the figure of Federick is being carried out by the Federico II Study Center and Solunto Foundation, beginning with the conference "Puer apuliae, stupor mundi" in Rome on 30 May, then with events in Bordeaux on 19 June and Bratislava on 15 September.[173]
