Salimbene de Adam

FRA Salimbene de Adam of Parma (Parma, October 9th 1221 - Montefalcone, Reggio of Emilie, 1288), is a monk franciscain disciple of Joachim de Flore ( Gioacchino da Fiore ) whose only work which reached us, Chronique ( Chronica ), is an important source for the history of Italy of the 13th century.

Biography

Salimbene is born on October 9th, 1221 in Parma in a masonry which is next to the baptistry of the duomo of Parma, a plate commemorates the place. He lived 15 years with his large mother who taught to him to avoid the malam societam and to seek the bonam . Quickly he studied grammar, the first of the seven liberal arts.

He enters first of all under the name of Ognibene the orders of Franciscains on February 4th 1238, against the will of his father who wished to ensure the descent of the family, the second Guido wire was also in the orders. Because no one is not good, except God alone , it takes the name of Salimbene.

It makes its noviciate with Fano then with Jesi and of 1239 with 1241 with Lucques. It goes to His during two years before leaving for Pisa then Crémone. In 1247, whereas it in Parma, is besieged by the imperial forces, it is sent in France to study. During its voyage it stops with Lyon, seat of the pontifical court where it meets Innocent IV (in Italy it had already become acquainted with the emperor Frederic II of the Holy roman Empire). In France, it becomes acquainted also with the brother Hughes de Digne, famous joachimist, who brings it closer to the doctrines of the Calabrian abbot Gioacchino da Fiore. In 1248, it is with Genoa then the minister provincial of Bologna brother Rufino Gurgone entrusts to him the seat of Ferrare and where there remain seven years of 1249 with 1256. He lives with Faenza in Romagna where it remains until in 1274. In 1285, it goes definitively to the convent of Montefalcone near San Polo of Enza in the province of Reggio of Emilie in the place where his/her Guido brother was buried, it drives there to him even in 1288.

The chronicle

A version partial of the Chronica of Salimbene de Adam reached us, written in Latin who often transfers itself in a vulgar Latin but who includes/understands a great richness of accounts and news at the point to do of them one of the historical funds most interesting of the 13th century.

It is about a chronicle of the religious and political life Italian the 120 years which go from 1168 to 1287, written in a very personal style whose the characteristics of a complex and multiform author show through: cultivated and close to vulgar, spiritual and impetuous, attentive with the history and amateur of the Bible. Its country conscience is particularly perceptible: the heat wave which damages wheat, the storms, harmful falls of snow, fruits of the almond trees in Provence when with Genoa they are still in flowering…

It is a historically important work: it restores in a sharp way the plague of the wars between the church and the empire, it describes the characters such as the popes, the cardinals like the society women and the women of the people, the beggars and the prophets, all seen by him of near.

This work is also the principal bottom to rebuild the biography of its author, because in this one, he speaks with abundance about the details about his own life and the works written by him unfortunately all lost.

Among this one, the " are mentioned; XII Friderici imperatoris" will seal; , work which was to be polemical having been used like opuscule as anti-imperial propaganda after the defeat of Vittoria in 1248. In same the Chronica Frederic II is described as a miserly man who fought the church only because he wanted to seize the ecclesiastical goods.

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