Fra' Moriale

Giovanni Moriale d'Albarno, also known as Fra' Moriale (French: Jean Montreal du Bar; 1303–1354) was a French mercenary and condottiero.

Born at Narbonne, he was a friar in the Knights Hospitaller. He arrived in Italy around 1345, and fought for Louis I of Hungary in the succession wars for the Kingdom of Naples. In 1349 he joined Werner von Urslingen's Great Company. Later he was hired by the Papal States, but he abandoned them due to insufficient payment.

In 1352, Galeotto I Malatesta besieged him in Aversa, where Moriale had amassed a large treasures during years of pillages. Forced to surrender, he was allowed to escape alive in exchange of all his wealth. After von Urslingen's death, he refounded the Great Company with German, Italian and Provençal mercenaries. Together with his kinman Bertrand de la Motte, he fought in Tuscany and Romagna with the aim to cut off a state for himself.

In an attempt to rescue his brothers and condottieri Annebald and Breton, who had got entangled in quarrels at Rome, he was arrested by order of tribune Cola di Rienzo and condemned to death. He was beheaded in the Capitol Hill square on 29 August 1354, and buried in the nearby church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli.

Sources

• Bartoli, Daniele (1668). Il torto e il diritto del non si può. Rome - Varese. 
• Ricotti. Storia delle compagnie di ventura in Italia, Ercole (1929). Athena. 

Persondata
Name	Moriale, Fra
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1303
Place of birth
Date of death	1354
Place of death