Salimbene di Adam
Salimbene di Adam | |
---|---|
Born | Ognibene di Adam 9 October 1221 |
Died | c. 1288 |
Nationality | Italian |
Other names | Salimbene of Parma |
Occupations |
|
Known for | Cronica ("Chronicle") |
Parent(s) | Guido di Adam Iumelda di Cassio |
Salimbene di Adam,
Life
Early years, 1221–1238
Salimbene was born in
Travels, 1238–1256
On 4 February 1238 Salimbene, then seventeen, was admitted into the
Salimbene led a life of wandering, avoiding his father who did not wish him to join the Order. From 1241 to 1243 Salimbene was in
The years 1247 to 1249 were the most crowded and exciting of the friar's life. He met
The range of Salimbene's travels during these years, the extraordinary number of great men he met, is a census of places and personalities uniquely characteristic of the mid-thirteenth century: Pope Innocent IV, Frederick II, King Louis IX of France, Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, Hugh of Digne, Gerardo da Borgo San Donnino, Bernard of Quintavalle, Filippo da Pistoia.
Later years and death, 1256–1288
His seven years in Ferrara were followed by fourteen years in various houses in Emilia, principally Reggio and Modena, and in Bologna. He seems to have spent the 1270s in the Romagna, and by 1283-1285 was back in Reggio again, where he began to write his Cronica. In 1287 he moved to the friary of Monfalcone (near San Polo d'Enza in the region of Emilia-Romagna), where he probably died around 1288.[5]
Cronica
Salimbene's main work was his Cronica ("Chronicle"), covering the years 1167–1287.[7] The Cronica is a lively and anecdotal work, written in a Latin strongly influenced by vernacular usage.[8] It was begun around 1282 and begins with the founding of Alessandria.[9] Salimbene is a very discursive and a very personal writer. He inserts several autobiographical episodes in his Chronicle and gives a remarkably vivid picture of life in France and Italy during the 13th century. He also gives numerous details of internal disputes in the Franciscan Order at the time and provides us with information about daily life among the early Franciscans which we get from no other source.
Salimbene's Cronica is a particularly important source for the history of Frederick II's Italian wars. A Guelph and a Franciscan, doubly vowed to enmity against him, Salimbene wrote of Frederick with a curious unwilling admiration, "Of faith in God he had none; he was crafty, wily, avaricious, lustful, malicious, wrathful; and yet a gallant man at times, when he would show his kindness or courtesy; full of solace, jocund, delightful, fertile in devices. He knew how to read, write, and sing, and to make songs and music."[10]
Salimbene is our principal witness to several of the leading personalities shaping thirteenth century society. He provides us with information which is hard to find at all outside his Chronicle. Yet in those instances where his facts can be checked against outside sources, the Chronicle has been shown to be generally trustworthy and reliable, even in the harsh account of Elias of Cortona, for example, where all of Salimbene's most violent prejudices have been engaged to blacken the character of a man he so evidently disliked.
Other works
Salimbene wrote several treatises whose titles are known but which are now lost. One of the most significant was the political pamphlet The Twelve Calamities of Emperor Frederick II (“XII scelera Friderici imperatoris”), probably written in 1248. "The Twelve Calamities" was set up as a kind of servant's narrative (Exempla, examples), made to demonstrate the faults of Frederick II - often with loosely fitted biblical quotations. One of the major themes of the work was Salimbene's emphasis on numerology. The work was set up to demonstrate the parallel between the ten plagues and the ten calamities of Frederick II (conveniently he tacked on the last two after the parallel). Emphasizing the Christian nature of his narrative and the non-Christian nature of Frederick, Salimbene turned a phrase used during the crusades claiming that “if he had been a good Catholic and had loved God, the Church, and his own soul, he would scarcely have had an equal as an emperor in the world.”[11]
Editions
Salimbene's Chronicle is incompletely preserved in a single manuscript (Vatican Latin 7260).[6] It was first edited in the "Monumenta historica ad provincias Parmensem et Placentinensem pertinentia", III (Parma, 1857), but the part issued only covered the years 1212-87.[12] The first part of the chronicle, covering the years 1167-1212, was edited by Léon Clédat in his work "De fratre Salimbene et de eius chronicae auctoritate" (Paris, 1878).[12] A fine and complete edition was edited by Holder-Egger in "Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores", XXXII (Hanover, 1906).[12] Besides an Italian translation by Carlo Cantarelli there is an incomplete one in English by G. G. Coulton with the title "From Francis to Dante" (London, 1906).[12]
References
- ^ a b c Heullant-Donat 2002.
- ^ Guyotjeannin 2005.
- ^ LaMonte, John L. (1944–1945). "The lords of Sidon in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries". Byzantion. 17: 201.
- ^ Bertoni, Giulio (1939). Il Duecento (III ed.). Milan. p. 260.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ a b c d Manselli 1960.
- ^ a b Cambell 2002, p. 615.
- ^ Edited by G. Scalia in the series "Scrittori d'Italia", Bari 1966, and earlier in the same series by F. Bernini, 1942 (see link below).; G.C. Coulton, From St Francis to Dante: translations from the chronicle of the Franciscan Salimbene (London 1907; reprinted Philadelphia 1972) is called a "paraphrase" by David Abulafia, Frederick II: A Medieval Emperor (Oxford 1988) p. 444.
- ^ Hélin, Maurice (1949). A History of Medieval Latin Literature. Translated by Jean Chapman Snow. New York: W. Salloch. p. 120.
- ^ Scivoletto 1950, p. 59.
- ISBN 9781512818550.
- ^ Di Adam, Salimbene. "The Chronicle of Salimbene de Adam". Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1986, p.351.
- ^ a b c d Herbermann 1913.
Sources
- Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. .
- Scivoletto, Nino (1950). Fra Salimbene da Parma e la storia politica e religiosa del secolo decimoterzo. Bari: Laterza.
- Manselli, Raoul (1960). "ADAM, Ognibene de". ISBN 978-8-81200032-6.
- Heullant-Donat, I. (2002). "Salimbene". In André Vauchez (ed.). Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages. James Clarke & Co. Retrieved 29 July 2023.
- Cambell, J. (2002). "Salimbene". ISBN 978-0787640163.
- Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. Retrieved 29 July 2023.
- "Salimbene de Adam". The Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages. Oxford University Press. 2010. Retrieved 29 July 2023.
Further reading
- Emil, Michael (1889). "Der Chronist Salimbene". JSTOR 24186834.
- S2CID 162895403.
- Cinzio, Violante (1953). "Motivi e carattere della "Cronica" di Salimbene". Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. Lettere, Storia e Filosofia. 22 (1/2): 108–154. JSTOR 24296849.
- Salimbene de Adam (1966). Giuseppe Scalia (ed.). Cronica. Scrittori d'Italia Laterza. Bari: Laterza.
- J.L. Baird; G. Baglivi; J.R. Kane, eds. (1986). The Chronicle of Salimbene de Adam. Binghamton, N.Y.: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies.
- D'Alatri, Mariano (1991). "La Religiosità Popolare nella Cronaca di Fra Salimbene". Mélanges Bérubé: études de philosophie et théologie médiévales offertes à Camille Bérubé, OFMCap. Rome: 185–200.
- Paul, Jacques (1992). Salimbene da Parma: Testimone e Cronista. Rome: Istituto Storico dei Cappuccini.
- Powell, Austin (2017). "Writing Polemic as History". Franciscan Studies. 75: 343–384. S2CID 171766864.
External links
- Salimbene di Adam at the Encyclopædia Britannica
- Excerpt from the Chronicle of Salimbene on Frederick II, "as translated and paraphrased by G. G. Coulton"
- Cronica Vol. 1 at the Internet Archive (Latin text)
- Cronica Vol. 2 at the Internet Archive (Latin text)
- Cronica, Ferdinando Bernini, Bari, 1942; scan of the complete text.