Lu rebellamentu di Sichilia

"Lu rebellamentu di Sichilia", fully "Cronica di lu rebellamentu di Sichilia contra re Carlu", ["Chronicle of the rebellion of Sicily against [Charles of Anjou|King Charles [of Anjou] "; the title as it appears in Enrico Sicardi (1917), "Due cronache del Vespro", in Lodovico Muratori, "Raccolta", XXXIV.3–29, is "Lu Rebellamentu di Sichilia, lu quali hordinam e fichi fari Misser Iohanni di Prochita, contra Re Carlu, narrato da Anonimo Messinese, sec. XIII", derived from a line in the work.] is a Sicilian historical tract of the War of the Vespers written around 1290. The anonymous "Rebellamentu", probably written at Messina, was ascribed to Atanasiu di Iaci by Pasquale Castorina in 1883. [G. Cusimano (1962), "Atanasiu di Iaci," "Dizionario biografico degli Italiani", vol. 4 (Rome: Società Grafica Romana), 519.] Though the "Rebellamentu" sometimes adds valuable details to the history of the Vespers, it is frequently untrustworthy. [Kenneth Meyer Setton (1976), "The Papacy and the Levant, 1204–1571: The Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries" (DIANE Publishing), 140.] Its monastic provenance is evident in its moralising tone. The antiquity of its language has placed its authenticity beyond doubt, despite its lack of an early manuscript tradition. [Giulio Bertoni (1910), "Il Duecento" (Milan), 426.] This has not prevented speculation that it was written contemporarily with events: one verb in one manuscript is found in the first-person present; this may represent the author inadvertently stepping out of his usual frame of reference, or merely a error in that manuscript. [Steven Runciman (1958), "The Sicilian Vespers: A History of the Mediterranean World in the Later Thirteenth Century" (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 290–91, who dismisses the contemporary dating, but defends its early provenance nonetheless.]

The "Rebellamentu" covers the years 1279–82 and treats John of Procida as a hero. [Runciman, 317. Its treatment of John of Procida helps secure its approximate date: after John was condemned by the Church in 1298, there would have been very little incentive to sing his praise.] It says that when the Sicilians complained to Charles of Anjou about their high taxes, he responded, "Vi farro spendiri munita di soli, como altra volta havitu spisu"," ["I will make you spend coinage of shoe leather, as you have done in the past."] threatening that he would re-issue leather money as had been done in the past. This probably indicates that the legend that William I issued leather money, otherwise first recorded by Tomasso Fazelli in his "De Rebus Siculis" (1558), was current in the late thirteenth century. [Philip Grierson and Lucia Travaini (1986), "Medieval European Coinage: With a Catalogue of the Coins in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge", vol. 14, Italy (III), South Italy, Sicily, Sardinia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 127. The legend, for which there is no historical basis, probably derives from an ancient legend about Dionysius I of Syracuse. According to Ricordano Malispini and Villani, the Emperor Frederick II, as King of Sicily, issued leather currency during his siege of Faenza in 1241–2, to pay his troops. Each piece was worth on augustale and was redeemed later for gold, but the authenticity of these near-contemporary records is suspects because of the currency of similar legends since antiquity.] The "Rebellamentu" also makes the Orsini Pope Nicholas III party to a conspiracy to dethrone Charles of Anjou. [G. A. Loud (1987), Review of "I Vespri siciliani e le relazioni tra Roma e Bisanzio: Studio critico sulle fonti" by Antonino Franchi, "The English Historical Review", 102(403), 472: "Few other commentators have followed the tract "lu Rebellamentu di Sichilia", despite its fairly early date, in seeing Nicholars III as a party to the conspiracy against Charles of Anjou—if such conspiracy there was. Even if Nicholas did refuse to renew Charles as Senator of Rome, he was still dependent on Angevin troops to maintain his hold over the Papal state."] The Florentine chronicler Giovanni Villani, who was biased against the Orsini because of the legation of Napoleone Orsini to Florence in 1306, supports the allegation.

The "Rebellamentu" covers John's negotiations with the Byzantine emperor Michael VIII Palaeologus and with Peter III of Aragon, the Sicilian Vespers, the coronation of Peter in Palermo in August 1282, the retreat of Charles to Calabria, and the entry of Peter and John into Messina in October 1282. The excerpt below describes how Peter was crowned by the Bishop of Cefalù because the incumbent of the Archdiocese of Palermo, Piero II de Santa Fede, had recently died, and the Archbishop of Monreale, Giovanni Roccamezza, was away in Rome:

The opera "Les vêpres siciliennes" (1855), with music by Giuseppe Verdi and a libretto by Eugène Scribe, drew upon the "Rebellamentu" for elements of its story. [Clifford R. Backman (2002), "The Decline and Fall of Medieval Sicily: Politics, Religion, and Economy in the Reign of Frederick III, 1296–1337" (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 6. Leon Plantinga (1984), "Romantic Music: A History of Musical Style in Nineteenth-Century Europe" (New York: W. W. Norton & Co.), 312, writes that the libretto by Scribe was heavily influenced by Verdi, citing Andrew Porter (1978–9), "Les vêpres siciliennes": New Letters from Verdi to Scribe," "Nineteenth-Century Music", 2(2), 95–109.]

Editions

* [http://books.google.ca/books?id=KFEIAAAAQAAJ "Lu rebellamentu di Sichilia. Codice della Biblioteca regionale di Palermo".] Edited by Filippo Evola (1882).
* [http://books.google.ca/books?id=uy8OAAAAQAAJ "Le vespro siciliano. Cronaca siciliana anonima intitolata Lu rebellamentu di Sichilia, codice esistente nell' Archivio municipale di Catania".] Edited by Pasquale Castorina (1882).

Notes