Cultural depictions of Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

German and English accounts 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." 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". For the famous 19th century English historian Edward Augustus Freeman, in genius and accomplishments, Frederick II was “surely the greatest prince who ever wore a crown”, superior to Alexander, Constantine or Charlemagne, who failed to grasp nothing in the “compass of the political or intellectual world of his age”. Freeman even considered Frederick to have been the last true Emperor of the West. Lionel Allshorn wrote in his 1912 biography of the Emperor that Frederick surpassed all of his contemporaries and introduced “the only enlightened concept of the art of government” in the Middle Ages. Dr. M. Schipa, in the Cambridge Medieval History, considered Frederick II a “creative spirit” who had “no equal” in the centuries between Charlemagne and Napoleon, forging in Sicily and Italy “the state as a work of art” and laid the “fertile seeds of a new era.” The noted Austrian cultural historian Egon Friedell saw Frederick as the greatest of the ‘four great rulers’ in history, embodying the far-seeing statecraft of Julius Caesar, the intellectuality of Frederick the Great, and the enterprise and “artist’s gaminerie” of Alexander the Great. For Friedell, Frederick’s “free mind” and “universal comprehension” of everything human stemmed from the conviction that no one was right. W. Köhler wrote that Frederick’s “marked individuality” made him the “ablest and most mature mind” of the Hohenstaufen who towered above his contemporaries. For Frederick, knowledge was power, and because of his knowledge, he wielded despotic power. Though the “sinister facts” of his despotism should not be ignored, the greatness of his mind and his energetic will compels admiration. 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. 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 believes 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. 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. 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." 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. 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, 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. Benjamin Arnold argues that royal power in Germany remained strong under Frederick. By the 1240s the crown was almost as rich in fiscal resources, towns, castles, enfeoffed retinues, monasteries, ecclesiastical advocacies, manors, tolls, and all other rights, revenues, and jurisdictions as it had ever been at any time since the death of Henry VI. It is unlikely that a particularly “strong ruler” such as Frederick II would have even pragmatically agreed to legislation that was concessionary rather than cooperative, neither would the princes have insisted on such. Therefore, the Statutum in favorem principum and Frederick’s other German legislation were practical solutions to secure the further support of the German princes while he ruled in the peripatetic style typical of a monarch with vast territories. Italian accounts 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. Kurstjens notes that, although vilified in Northern Italy and generally controversial, Frederick is still viewed unanimously as the founder of the Italian language. 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." 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. 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. 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: 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. On Frederick's national identity and cultural inclinations 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. (nineteenth century). 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. 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. 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. On Frederick as a military leader 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. 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. 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 statesmanship, while in the long term, Frederick II's opponents recovered while the emperor suffered more personal trauma. Abulafia was one author who disparages Frederick's military skills, saying that he preferred civil affairs and hesitated to test himself in battle. Books • • • • • • • • • Websites • • • • ==Legends and anecdotes==