John of Procida
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John of Procida (Italian: Giovanni da Procida) (1210–1298) was an Italian medieval physician and diplomat.
He was born in Salerno, educated in the Schola Medica as a physician. He was a noted physician for his age and received a professorial chair at this university. He came to the attention of Frederick II, who was patron of the university, and he eventually became Frederick's personal physician and attended him to his death.[1] He was also personal physician to Cardinal John Orsini, the future Pope Nicholas III. Being noticed for his intelligence and pragmatism, he rose through the diplomatic ranks in the Hohenstaufen Kingdom of Sicily. He was actually John III, son of John II of Procida and Clemenza Logoteta, of the family of the lords of the island of Procida.
He was originally a counsellor of
In 1279 and 1280 John (or, as Runciman argues, one of his sons at his behest
On 2 February 1283, Peter, who had invaded Sicily in the wake of the Vespers uprising, nominated John as Grand Chancellor. He was put in charge of the island when Peter went to France to take up a challenge by Charles later that year. All this did not stop the aged diplomat from continuing his frenetic activity at the varied courts of Europe's monarchs. It was on one of these trips that he died, at Rome, at the age of eighty-eight years, in 1298.
The legacy of John of Procida is controversial.
According to legend, he was in Naples incognito on 29 October 1268, when they executed Conradin. He supposedly recovered the guanto di sfida (gauntlet) Conradin threw into the crowd before his execution.
Sources
- Chaytor, H. J. (1933). A History of Aragon and Catalonia. London: Methuen.
- Mendola, Louis. Sicily's Rebellion against King Charles. New York, 2015. Translation of Lu rebellamentu di Sichilia.
- Runciman, Steven. The Sicilian Vespers. Cambridge University Press, 1958.