Nov 24 Mon ICI LOUIS HAMILTON on HOLY ROMAN EMPEROR FREDERICK II
Nov 24 Mon 6pm ICI – Frederick II Holy Roman Emperor 1220-1270
Posted on November 17, 2014 by textgenie
A great man damned by the Church:
Monday, November 24, 2014
Lecture-
FREDERICK II HOLY ROMAN EMPEROR
SOUTHERN ITALY AT THE CROSSROADS OF EUROPEAN AND MEDITERRANEAN CULTURES
–
ICI Fred II Emperor
ICI Fred II Emperor
FREDERICK II HOLY ROMAN EMPERORThe extraordinary and sometimes underestimated legacy of Frederick’s reign between 1220 and 1250 is the subject of a lecture by Louis Hamilton. The era of Frederick’s rule has justifiably been described as the “first Renaissance.” However, whereas the later Italian Renaissance flourished primarily in the center and north of the peninsula, this first flowering had its origins in Sicily and the South, the epicenter of Frederick’s empire, from which this free-thinking, multilingual emperor (apart from several Western tongues, he also knew Hebrew and Arabic) conducted his affairs. The spirit of the art-loving emperor who presided over the first great rediscovery of the classical arts in Southern Italy. His artistic and cultural contributions were for centuries obscured by the damnation of his memory by the Catholic church. Dante placed him in the sixth circle of hell, eternally burning in a fiery tomb along with other Epicurean heretics.
Wiki:Frederick II (26 December 1194 – 13 December 1250), was one of the most powerful Holy Roman Emperors of the Middle Ages and head of the House of Hohenstaufen. His political and cultural ambitions, based in Sicily and stretching through Italy to Germany, and even to Jerusalem, were enormous; however, his enemies, especially the popes, prevailed, and his dynasty collapsed soon after his death. Historians have searched for superlatives to describe him, as in the case of Professor Donald Detwiler, who wrote:
A man of extraordinary culture, energy, and ability – called by a contemporary chronicler stupor mundi (the wonder of the world), by Nietzsche the first European, and by many historians the first modern ruler – Frederick established in Sicily and southern Italy something very much like a modern, centrally governed kingdom with an efficient bureaucracy.[2]
Viewing himself as a direct successor to the Roman Emperors of Antiquity,[3] he was Emperor of the Romans from his papal coronation in 1220 until his death; he was also a claimant to the title of King of the Romans from 1212 and unopposed holder of that monarchy from 1215. As such, he was King of Germany, of Italy, and of Burgundy. At the age of three, he was crowned King of Sicily as a co-ruler with his mother, Constance of Hauteville, the daughter of Roger II of Sicily. His other royal title was King of Jerusalem by virtue of marriage and his connection with the Sixth Crusade.
He was frequently at war with the Papacy, hemmed in between Frederick’s lands in northern Italy and his Kingdom of Sicily (the Regno) to the south, and thus he was excommunicated four times and often vilified in pro-papal chronicles of the time and since. Pope Gregory IX went so far as to call him the Antichrist.
Speaking six languages (Latin, Sicilian, German, French, Greek and Arabic[4]), Frederick was an avid patron of science and the arts. He played a major role in promoting literature through the Sicilian School of poetry. His Sicilian royal court in Palermo, from around 1220 to his death, saw the first use of a literary form of an Italo-Romance language, Sicilian. The poetry that emanated from the school had a significant influence on literature and on what was to become the modern Italian language. The school and its poetry were saluted by Dante and his peers and predate by at least a century the use of the Tuscan idiom as the elite literary language of Italy.[5]
After his death, his line quickly died out and the House of Hohenstaufen came to an end.
The Emperor Frederick II (1194-1250) has been described in a variety of superlatives, “Wonder of the World,” “first European,” and “first modern ruler,” all of which emphasize his exceptional character. Most notably, his pragmatism in dealing with, and engagement with Arabic culture, his reorganization of legal systems, and embrace of science are often described as innovations of his reign. When Frederick’s reign is placed into the southern Italian context of the previous century, however, we begin to see greater continuities with the likes of Bohemond or Roger II in all of these categories.
Louis I. Hamilton is the Director of the Baldwin Honors Program and an Associate Professor in the Comparative Religion Department at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey. He is the author of A Sacred City: Consecrating Churches and Reforming Society in Eleventh-Century Italy (Manchester University Press, 2010). His articles consider diverse topics including Africa in the time of St. Augustine, Robert Guiscard’s assault on Rome in 1084, the liturgy in 12th-century Rome, and teaching Dante using digital mapping systems (GIS). In addition, he is co-editor with Stefano Riccioni (Università Ca’Foscari, Venezia) of Rome Re-Imagined: Twelfth-Century Jews, Christians, and Muslims Encounter the Eternal City (Brill, 2012) and with Christopher Bellitto (Kean University) of Reforming the Church before Modernity: Patterns, Problems, and Approaches (Ashgate, 2005). His current research projects include a study of devotional shrines (edicolesacre) in the city of Rome from the classical period to the present.
Prof. Hamilton holds a PhD in medieval History from Fordham University (2000) and a License in Mediaeval Studies from the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto (2006).Info
Date: Monday, November 24, 2014
Hours: 6PM
Venue: Italian Cultural Institute of New York
Organized by: ICI
————————————–
HOW IT TURNED OUT
Another jewel in the crown of the ICI series of many talks, concerts and exhibitions celebrating the Year of Italian Culture, this thorough and detailed reassessment of the renowned Sicilian based Emperor Frederick II explained that the admirable ruler of Germany, Burgundy, North Italy and Southern Italy was much more the child of his time than general interest celebrants of his Rennaissance qualities seem to imagine. Certainly he centralized political power and established a country wide system of laws and taxes, and his cultural and linguistic openness and patronage of the arts and architecture is indisputable, but people forget how advanced his father-in-law Roger II was in these regards also. Frederick was not a totally original stupor mundi but extended the medieval advances of his predecessors in government as much as he anticipated the flowering of the Italian Rennaissance in the arts and culture. And was he a lover of men in the physical sense, as some opinion has it? There is no evidence in that regard, said Professor Hamilton, who entertained questions and discussion for some time after he finished his slide talk, with some interesting questions raised.
Read MorePosted on November 17, 2014 by textgenie
A great man damned by the Church:
Monday, November 24, 2014
Lecture-
FREDERICK II HOLY ROMAN EMPEROR
SOUTHERN ITALY AT THE CROSSROADS OF EUROPEAN AND MEDITERRANEAN CULTURES
–
ICI Fred II Emperor
ICI Fred II Emperor
FREDERICK II HOLY ROMAN EMPERORThe extraordinary and sometimes underestimated legacy of Frederick’s reign between 1220 and 1250 is the subject of a lecture by Louis Hamilton. The era of Frederick’s rule has justifiably been described as the “first Renaissance.” However, whereas the later Italian Renaissance flourished primarily in the center and north of the peninsula, this first flowering had its origins in Sicily and the South, the epicenter of Frederick’s empire, from which this free-thinking, multilingual emperor (apart from several Western tongues, he also knew Hebrew and Arabic) conducted his affairs. The spirit of the art-loving emperor who presided over the first great rediscovery of the classical arts in Southern Italy. His artistic and cultural contributions were for centuries obscured by the damnation of his memory by the Catholic church. Dante placed him in the sixth circle of hell, eternally burning in a fiery tomb along with other Epicurean heretics.
Wiki:Frederick II (26 December 1194 – 13 December 1250), was one of the most powerful Holy Roman Emperors of the Middle Ages and head of the House of Hohenstaufen. His political and cultural ambitions, based in Sicily and stretching through Italy to Germany, and even to Jerusalem, were enormous; however, his enemies, especially the popes, prevailed, and his dynasty collapsed soon after his death. Historians have searched for superlatives to describe him, as in the case of Professor Donald Detwiler, who wrote:
A man of extraordinary culture, energy, and ability – called by a contemporary chronicler stupor mundi (the wonder of the world), by Nietzsche the first European, and by many historians the first modern ruler – Frederick established in Sicily and southern Italy something very much like a modern, centrally governed kingdom with an efficient bureaucracy.[2]
Viewing himself as a direct successor to the Roman Emperors of Antiquity,[3] he was Emperor of the Romans from his papal coronation in 1220 until his death; he was also a claimant to the title of King of the Romans from 1212 and unopposed holder of that monarchy from 1215. As such, he was King of Germany, of Italy, and of Burgundy. At the age of three, he was crowned King of Sicily as a co-ruler with his mother, Constance of Hauteville, the daughter of Roger II of Sicily. His other royal title was King of Jerusalem by virtue of marriage and his connection with the Sixth Crusade.
He was frequently at war with the Papacy, hemmed in between Frederick’s lands in northern Italy and his Kingdom of Sicily (the Regno) to the south, and thus he was excommunicated four times and often vilified in pro-papal chronicles of the time and since. Pope Gregory IX went so far as to call him the Antichrist.
Speaking six languages (Latin, Sicilian, German, French, Greek and Arabic[4]), Frederick was an avid patron of science and the arts. He played a major role in promoting literature through the Sicilian School of poetry. His Sicilian royal court in Palermo, from around 1220 to his death, saw the first use of a literary form of an Italo-Romance language, Sicilian. The poetry that emanated from the school had a significant influence on literature and on what was to become the modern Italian language. The school and its poetry were saluted by Dante and his peers and predate by at least a century the use of the Tuscan idiom as the elite literary language of Italy.[5]
After his death, his line quickly died out and the House of Hohenstaufen came to an end.
The Emperor Frederick II (1194-1250) has been described in a variety of superlatives, “Wonder of the World,” “first European,” and “first modern ruler,” all of which emphasize his exceptional character. Most notably, his pragmatism in dealing with, and engagement with Arabic culture, his reorganization of legal systems, and embrace of science are often described as innovations of his reign. When Frederick’s reign is placed into the southern Italian context of the previous century, however, we begin to see greater continuities with the likes of Bohemond or Roger II in all of these categories.
Louis I. Hamilton is the Director of the Baldwin Honors Program and an Associate Professor in the Comparative Religion Department at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey. He is the author of A Sacred City: Consecrating Churches and Reforming Society in Eleventh-Century Italy (Manchester University Press, 2010). His articles consider diverse topics including Africa in the time of St. Augustine, Robert Guiscard’s assault on Rome in 1084, the liturgy in 12th-century Rome, and teaching Dante using digital mapping systems (GIS). In addition, he is co-editor with Stefano Riccioni (Università Ca’Foscari, Venezia) of Rome Re-Imagined: Twelfth-Century Jews, Christians, and Muslims Encounter the Eternal City (Brill, 2012) and with Christopher Bellitto (Kean University) of Reforming the Church before Modernity: Patterns, Problems, and Approaches (Ashgate, 2005). His current research projects include a study of devotional shrines (edicolesacre) in the city of Rome from the classical period to the present.
Prof. Hamilton holds a PhD in medieval History from Fordham University (2000) and a License in Mediaeval Studies from the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto (2006).Info
Date: Monday, November 24, 2014
Hours: 6PM
Venue: Italian Cultural Institute of New York
Organized by: ICI
————————————–
HOW IT TURNED OUT
Another jewel in the crown of the ICI series of many talks, concerts and exhibitions celebrating the Year of Italian Culture, this thorough and detailed reassessment of the renowned Sicilian based Emperor Frederick II explained that the admirable ruler of Germany, Burgundy, North Italy and Southern Italy was much more the child of his time than general interest celebrants of his Rennaissance qualities seem to imagine. Certainly he centralized political power and established a country wide system of laws and taxes, and his cultural and linguistic openness and patronage of the arts and architecture is indisputable, but people forget how advanced his father-in-law Roger II was in these regards also. Frederick was not a totally original stupor mundi but extended the medieval advances of his predecessors in government as much as he anticipated the flowering of the Italian Rennaissance in the arts and culture. And was he a lover of men in the physical sense, as some opinion has it? There is no evidence in that regard, said Professor Hamilton, who entertained questions and discussion for some time after he finished his slide talk, with some interesting questions raised.
