As Logothetes, “one who places words,” this greatest Latin stylist of the Middle Ages was, both in writing and speaking, the mouthpiece of imperial thought and act, the creator of the imperial diction and the majestic utterance; as jurist, probably the author of all the Emperor’s laws; as scholar and humanist of the first water, the counsellor and intimate, nay the friend of the Emperor. He was quite indispensable to Frederick, this master of expression, who had at his command the most telling phrase for each phase of the versatile Emperor’s activity, who supplied the most convincing explanation of his master’s acts, and often in so doing helped to determine the next step, whose duty it was to announce and make plausible Frederick’s constant changes of front. Frederick had raised him up from nothing to the first position in the state, and made him the confidant of all his schemes, and was finally compelled to destroy him when the servant began, unaccountably, to stumble. With another man, reproof or banishment would have sufficed; a blunder of della Vigna’s merited extinction. His was a life which Fate entangled in the tragedy of the House of Hohenstaufen.
Legend ascribed the basest origin to Piero della Vigna, son of an unknown father, and an abandoned mother, who miserably supported herself and her infant by beggary. He was, in fact, of reputable family, his father probably a town judge in Capua, where Piero was certainly born. The boy seems to have gone to Bologna without the family approval, and to have carried on his studies in canon law and civil law amid considerable hardships. At last he addressed a petition to Archbishop Berard of Palermo. It is a testimony to both that on the strength of this one letter, so the story goes, Berard of Palermo immediately commended the petitioner to the Emperor’s attention. When Frederick returned in 1221 he installed the young man as notary in his Chancery, and, recognising his outstanding ability, speedily promoted him to be High Court Judge, then Chief Notary of the Sicilian kingdom, till he finally created for him the post of Logothetes, who should actually speak for the Emperor in the High Court, as well as write for him. As High Court Judge Piero della Vigna was one of the legal Counsellors in the closest attendance on the Emperor. In this capacity he formulated the whole body of Laws that comprised the Constitutions of 1231. So amply did he play “Tribonian to the Justinian of Sicily” that posterity inserted his name at the end of the Liber Augustalis. Later, della Vigna took over the sole direction of the imperial Chancery, and his fame rested more especially on his stylistic accomplishment. His art, however, was rooted in human things, and his facility of expression grew with the Emperor’s growth. When the Crusades had given the Emperor new horizons the manifestos of the Capuan began to expand and to swell into a rhythmic emotion which, year by year, surrounded the majesty of Frederick II with more magnificent and more awe-inspiring eloquence.
His Latin was an artificial language, highly perfected in form, often difficult to understand, so that contemporaries complained of his highest style as “intentionally obscure.” Only by a measure of obscurity was it possible, without sacrificing its living vigour, to extort from Latin, for centuries traditionally mishandled, the notes of height and depth required. When the humanists a little later revivified the classical Latin of Cicero they discovered—alas—a dead language, and brought it again to birth. Piero della Vigna is the last creative writer of living Latin. It was a living language that spoke with pomp and pride and smooth-flowing magnificence from his obscure periods. Its comprehensiveness and joy in style bore within them the seeds of classic humanistic Latin. Della Vigna’s speech, a Summa in its own domain, exhausted every possibility of Latin-Christian linguistics in the realms of Church and Empire.
For centuries to come, long after the Christian Roman world that had begotten them was dead, his collected letters lived on in the Chanceries of Europe as masterpieces of style, and preserved the image of that Emperor who had imposed it on his spokesman. How much in these letters is Piero della Vigna, and how much Frederick, will never be known, but the composite result dictated the style of all the other imperial secretaries. The Capuan’s elaborate and emotional forms of expression would have rung false and hollow without the living reality that underlay them, without the wide circle of the Roman Empire, and in the background the Emperor holding the pen. King Manfred’s letters in della Vigna’s style disclose a painful discrepancy.
The information we crave about Piero della Vigna’s personal and private life is not forthcoming, but his poems, letters and manifestos betray him as one of those highly-cultured literati whom humanism, awaking with Petrarch, later produced in numbers. Piero della Vigna was the most eminent amongst the few existing in the early thirteenth century. On the one hand he was master of the old: the formalism of the time, canon and civil law, scholastic and ancient philosophy, ancient authors and church divines, rhetoric, versifying, letter-writing. On the other hand he was zealous to face the new with an elemental fire and passion that flash from his writings. He was ready to turn his hand to anything: scholar and judge, philosopher and artist, stylist, diplomat and courtier, ambassador and go-between, even warrior when occasion demands, drawing up the lines of battle, perhaps even taking part in the fight. He wore himself out in service. He says himself that he had grown very old—in contrast to the ever-youthful Emperor. Little is known about his appearance. The so-called della Vigna bust of the bridge gate at Capua cannot represent the celebrated High Court Judge of Frederick II, but more likely portrays a late classical philosopher. Nevertheless, the contemporary identification of this bust with a judge of the Hohenstaufen Court indicates that this human type, was not unfamiliar amongst the law scholars of the Court; a heavy, serious, learned face it is, with supercilious, even mocking expression; vigorous and strong, however, and massive, with the mighty beard which lends added dignity to the head—the very antithesis of the picture we form of the Emperor himself.
Piero della Vigna’s duties to the Naples University and to the imperial Chancery and High Court were not confined to the administration, but extended also to the personnel. For one thing, Court officials gave lectures at the University; amongst them the High Court Judge, Roffredo of Benevento, and later an imperial Court Notary, Nicolas of Rocca, who started rhetorical courses in Naples. The relation of the Chancery to the students was even more important, for the budding jurist, especially the young notary, received the groundwork of his training at the University, but the final polish at the Emperor’s court. The literary education of the favoured few was more or less directly in the hands of Piero della Vigna, in whose Chancery they acquired the stilum supremum. Piero della Vigna was in this the upholder of a tradition which lingered, not in the Court, but in his native town of Capua. For the art of style, the ars dictandi, had been so specially cultivated in this town that one may fairly talk of a Capuan School, the peculiar character of which was its direct reversion to late classical prose. Piero della Vigna very possibly learnt his own skill in Capua, whereas the stylists of preceding generations had adopted the famous epistolary manner of the Roman Curia under the great Innocent. Piero della Vigna quite probably owed the Archbishop of Palermo’s recommendation to the fact that the Emperor was anxious for his Chancery to attain the same distinction of style as the Curia. Della Vigna’s first petition must have displayed remarkable skill to lead to his reception in the High Court. The value which Frederick II attached to the style of his letters, and his ambition to compete in this with the Curia, would have combined with his own artistic appreciation to perceive the political significance of such unusual ability. The Emperor had to win public opinion by his manifestos, which supplied in the Christian world the place of the ancient Forum. Epistolary art replaced the forensic eloquence of Rome and the Greek cities. People justly compared Piero della Vigna, the orator of Capua, to Cicero.
There was at the beginning of the thirteenth century, in Capua a flourishing school of written rhetoric, of which Piero della Vigna himself was a product. It was extremely significant that he established a close connection between it and the High Court and even transplanted it to t
he imperial Chancery. The Chancery itself thus became a school of rhetoric, the focus of the literary life of the Court. Everything about the Emperor’s Court which seems a foretaste of Humanism: the reversion to classic models; the Emperor’s cult of Rome; his echo of the Caesars in formula and title, simile and metaphor, all this had its roots in the learned circles of Piero della Vigna, who were inspired on their side by the presence of a living Caesar. The two reinforced each other: Frederick II could pose as Caesar because his entourage could accept him in such a rôle, and he was driven to pose as Caesar because rhetorical and literary style proclaimed him such. The same applied to his Christian attitude: for the imperial art of letter-writing sprang from the curial style which provided all the Biblical comparisons, including the comparisons with Christ. This blend of the Christian and the ancient Roman which prevails in Frederick’s writing and smacks of the Renaissance, is the product of this group of stylists to whom a knowledge of the Bible was as necessary as a knowledge of the classics. This does not explain their vigour. The many private letters of these imperial chancery officials that have come down to us are convincing proof of the passion for knowledge that possessed these men, when once they had breathed the strong intellectual atmosphere of the imperial court. A wretched notary writes from prison to his friends to send him a Livy or some other historian, feeling convinced that he was “not worthy to unloose the latchet of their shoes.” These officials shared the view the Emperor loved to inculcate: that “fame comes through knowledge, honour comes through fame, and riches come through honour.”
The High Court and the Chancery itself distributed to the widest possible circles this knowledge which the Emperor so highly prized and his courtiers coveted. “The breasts of rhetoric have suckled many eminent minds at the imperial court,” writes Piero della Vigna to a younger friend, whom he later brought to court and with whom, as with others, he kept up a correspondence that served the purpose also of exercises in style. This may have been a usual way of giving lessons in letter-writing, so that the letter served a double purpose. It is no matter for surprise that the later stylists were, for the most part, della Vigna’s compatriots: Campanians if not Capuans. A number of his pupils are known, who themselves became the instructors of literary youth. John of Capua calls himself the pupil of Piero della Vigna. In a letter of consolation addressed to two of the Emperor’s secretaries about the death of a third (all three having also been disciples of the great High Court Judge) he paints a very vivid picture of della Vigna’s human methods: “Well I know how our master and only benefactor Piero della Vigna is shocked by the death of such a friend. For he had, with good reason, cherished the greatest hopes that his vineyard (vinea) would have brought forth three shoots from a fruitful vine and that he might have presented to the Emperor from the womb of his beloved, three worthy disciples, three wooers of his own worth, three followers of his own life. The unknowing would have sought to ascertain, the knowing would have marvelled, how all three had received the same teaching in the same manner from such a teacher, and how one affection had united all the three. Happy indeed this community of three in one, where domestic love unites teacher and pupils.” This indicates the school-like character of the Capuan tradition. The inevitable jealousy of the courtiers is hinted at when we read that Piero della Vigna wins fame and praise, and envy too, when his pupils “find grace in the eyes of the Prince” and receive posts from him “who loveth the tribe of the young.” Della Vigna is constantly alluded to in court circles with a pun on his name as the “fruitful vineyard.” He was the centre and soul of all this courtly activity, and they turned to him for enlightenment when the courtiers “fell to merry quarrelling” over one problem or another, as intellectual men are wont to do in company.
Della Vigna enjoyed the Emperor’s complete confidence. There was no lack of sycophants who flattered “the Master’s Vineyard.” One prelate wrote: “Vinea was the Petrus on whose rock the Emperor’s Church was founded when the Emperor refreshed his spirit by a meal with his disciples.” They called him “the Emperor’s Vicar,” corresponding to the Prince of the Apostles, Peter, Vicar of Christ, and as such the “Bearer of the Keys” of this world’s empire, of the Emperor’s heart, a simile of which Dante later made use. Della Vigna’s indirect influence on Court society was no less great. Men hummed round him as Frederick’s favourite; the highest dignitaries of Church and State inquired of him the general temper of the Court, the mood of the “Dominus” or the “Caesar.” They reproached him for his long silence, or forwarded requests and recommendations for the Emperor, begging his support. All these letters seek to attain the lofty style of the master, and his answers often show a touch of delicate irony as he couches them in even more pompous phrase and metaphor. Piero della Vigna maintained intercourse with the law professors of Bologna for some time. But whereas in earlier days Roman Emperors turned to Bologna to enquire the interpretation or application of a law, the doctors of Bologna now betook themselves to Frederick II to enquire from him about some enactment peculiar to Sicily, and right gladly Frederick answered them. Piero della Vigna’s Constitutions of Melfi represent one of the greatest legal achievements of the century. Commentaries on the Liber Augustalis began to appear almost at once, and many of the commentators were alumni of the University of Naples. Thus one creation reacted on the other.
The art of writing Latin verse was part of the school routine for students of style and rhetoric; it was practised almost exclusively in legal stylistic circles. Secular Latin literature was a relatively late growth in Italy, and one of the earliest goliard compositions in Italy is ascribed to Piero della Vigna. It is a long satirical poem, directed against the greed of prelates and mendicant monks, and differs from the other songs of vagrant poets by its positive political importance. Piero’s pupils also wrote Latin verse: Master Terrisius of Atina, author of a lengthy poem, was counted among his friends. The Chronicler, Richard of San Germano, who interwove a number of poems with the text of his chronicle, was also a notary, but he did not belong to the actual della Vigna circle. Nor did the judge, Richard of Venusia, who composed a comedy in distichs full of topical allusions to imperial officials. He dedicated his comedy to the Emperor. It was the first effort of its kind.
Works in Greek verse were not unheard of in official circles. Calabria was still largely Greek in speech, and is said to have been the means of introducing a knowledge of ancient Greek to Renaissance scholars. Barlaam, who is the reputed Greek teacher of both Petrarch and Boccaccio, was a Calabrian. The Constitutions of Melfi were soon translated into Greek, and we possess a number of Greek letters from Frederick (who was a master also of that language) to his son-in-law John Vatatzes, Emperor of Nicaea. They were probably drafted by the same Greek-speaking notary as was usually employed to translate Greek documents into Latin, John of Otranto. An iambic poem of his on the Siege of Parma has been preserved. This episode also formed the subject of a long poem by the Chartophylax, Georgios of Gallipoli in Calabria, together with an enthusiastic encomium on Frederick II in which the Emperor figures as Zeus, the Thunder God and Lightning-Wielder of Greek mythology. A supernatural atmosphere thus surrounded the Hohenstaufen, which was revealed in a remarkable manner to the later humanists. The story goes that in 1497 a carp was caught in a pond at Heilbronn, in whose gills, under the skin, a copper ring was fastened, with a Greek inscription which stated that Frederick II, with his own hand, had released this fish. The humanists were much struck by “the remarkably life-giving quality of the hand Friderici Secundi” and particularly stirred by the inscription’s being in Greek, and they decided that Frederick’s intention must have been to quicken to new life the study of Greek in Germany by this message of a dumb fish.
The intellectual influence exercised in foreign countries by the Hohenstaufen’s court is revealed in a Latin poem of the Englishman, Henry of Avranches, who offered his services to the Emperor about this time. The poet shows himself a man well skilled in every branch of stylistic art, master of a
ll the early humanistic culture of his day like John of Salisbury. He writes at great length on the origin of Latin poetry, which came from the Hebrews to the Greeks, through Adonis and Sappho, and from the Greeks passed to the Latins, and which he himself venerates and practises. Verse is the divine form of speech, and the man who can convert prose into verse can also transform the caves of a savage country into dwelling-houses. He, therefore, the Englishman, would fain live at the Emperor’s court and be his comrade in the art of poetry or renounce his honour as the king of song.
The Emperor himself did not write Latin verse—if we except the verse inscriptions on imperial castles and forts, and a few occasional couplets which tradition ascribes to him. Nevertheless, he was in close touch with the stylists and their work. He shared their scholarship to a very large extent, and we are told in many places that he was able himself to speak with great eloquence and skill, though he later preferred to allow Piero della Vigna to make his speeches for him, taking a verse of Ovid for a text as readily as a messianic saying from the Bible. The Emperor had no craving for displaying his skill, and shrewdly refrained from over-much public speaking. Popular opinion averred: “He speaks little, knows much and can do much.” It must have had all the more immense effect when, on really important occasions, the Emperor himself spoke after Piero della Vigna. A report informs us what a shudder of amazement seized the people on one occasion, when, from his throne, raised high above the heads of the multitude, the Sacred Majesty of the Emperor solemnly spoke down and defended itself against the Bishop of Rome. Perhaps the custom of princely ceremonial speeches dates from Frederick II, who has been called the “mirror of the world in speech and custom.” With the great Hohenstaufen such speeches were provoked only by stern necessity; no prince of the Renaissance will have been able to evoke the magic shudder that greeted Frederick’s voice.
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