Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T03:28:24.400Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Ancona, Byzantium and the Adriatic, 1155–1173

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2013

David Abulafia
Get access

Ancona, bisanzio e l'adriatico — 1155–1173

L'argomento di questo articolo é il rapporto tra la cittá commerciale di Ancona e l'imperatore bizantino Manuel Komneno, espresso in una alleanza politico-militare durata dal 1155 al 1173. Si tenta di spiegare ció che una cittá italiana di media grandezza potesse rappresentare per Bisanzio nella sua ampia strategia di confronto con i Normanni di Sicilia e, piú tardi, con l'imperatore germanico Federico Barbarossa. I Bizantini non solo attribuirono grande importanza al loro simbolico « ritorno in Italia », ma usarono Ancona come base strategico-militare e come deposito di grandi quantitativi d'oro, col quale speravano di guadagnare alleati nell'Italia nord-rientale. Col miglioramento dei rapporti coi Normanni, Ancona non perse la sua importanza poiché era anche una leva contro i Veneziani, che Manuel Komneno vedeva con crescente ostilitá. La presenza di Costantino Donkas, dux della Dlmazia, ad Ancona nel 1173, sottolinea l'importanza che Ancona aveva in una piú ampia politica di espansione bizantina nell'Adriatico. Ancona, tuttavia, non fu posta sotto il governo diretto di Bisanzio, ma fu onorata dai Greci come cittá libera che era volontariamente entrata nell'orbita bizantina.

Type
Research Article
Information
Papers of the British School at Rome , Volume 52 , November 1984 , pp. 195 - 216
Copyright
Copyright © British School at Rome 1984

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 du Parc, J. Couraye, ‘Recherches sur la chanson de “Jehan de Lanson”’, Mélanges J. Havet: recueil de travaux d'érudition (Paris, 1895), 325–54Google Scholar; Manuel bibliographique de la littérature française du moyen âge (Bibliothèque Elzévirienne, Etudes et Documents, Melun, 1951), 56, no. 556Google Scholar.

2 Giangiacomi, Palermo, Ancona e l'Italia contro Barbarossa; ricostruzione dei tempi, guerre di Lombardia, cronaca del Buoncompagno (Ancona, s.d. [1927]), 198Google Scholar. Written in a florid style, this work adds little of real value to the interpretation of Ancona's relations with Barbarossa.

3 Buoncompagni Liber de Obsidione Ancone [a. 1173], ed. Zimolo, Giulio C., (Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, ser. 2, vi, parte 3Google Scholar), [hereafter: Buoncompagno]; Zimolo, G. C., ‘Di un nuovo codice dell'“Assedio di Ancona” di Maestro Boncompagno, con altre notizie sul codice di Cleveland’, Bullettino dell'Istituto storico italiano per il Medio Evo, lv (1941), 207–21Google Scholar; Stanford, Eva Matthews, ‘The Lombard Cities, Empire and Papacy in a Cleveland Manuscript’, Speculum, xii (1937), 203–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Giangiacomi, op. cit., 205–98 for an Italian translation of the chronicle.

4 Buoncompagno, 50.

5 Eustathii Thessalonicensis Oratio ad Manuelem imperatorem', in: Regel, W., ed., Fontes rerum Byzantinarum, i. 1, Rhetorum saeculi XII orationes politicae (Petropoli, 1892), 92–125Google Scholar. See also: Lamma, P., ‘Aldruda, contessa di Bertinoro, in un panegirico di Eustazio di Tessalonica’, in: Lamma, P., Oriente e Occidente nell'alto medioevo: studi storici sulle due civiltà (Padua, 1968), 383–94Google Scholar; repr. from: Atti e Memorie della Deputazione di Storia Patria per la Provincia di Romagna, n.s., iii (1951/1952), 59–72Google Scholar.

6 Among recent discussions see: Carile, A., ‘L'assedio di Aneona del 1173. Contributo alla storia politica e sociale della città nel secolo XII’, Atti e Memorie della Deputazione di Storia Patria per le Marche, vii (1971–1973), 23–57Google Scholar; and a later version of the same article, ‘Federico Barbarossa, i veneziani e l'assedio di Aneona del 1173’, Studi Veneziani, xvi (1974), 3–31Google Scholar; Borsari, S., ‘Aneona e Bisanzio nei secoli XII–XIII’, in: Aneona Repubblica Marinara. Federico Barbarossa e le Marche. Atti del Convegno di Studi storici, Aneona, 19–20 aprile 1969 (Città di Castello, 1972), 67–76Google Scholar; Schreiner, P., ‘Der Dux von Dalmatien und die Belagerung Anconas im Jahre 1173. Zur Italien- und Balkanpolitik Manuels I.’, Byzantion, xli (1971), 285–311Google Scholar. See now also Leonhard, J. F., Die Seestadt Aneona im Spätmittelalter (Bibliothek des Deutschen Historischen Instituts in Rom, lv, Tübingen, 1983), 38–85Google Scholar. This book appeared after the text of this article was complete. Leonhard provides much precise information about the Byzantine presence in Aneona, but he does not develop his discussion of the wider Adriatic connections in the way pursued here.

7 Lamma, P., ‘Byzanz kehrt nach Italien zurück’, in Beiträge zur Geschichte Italiens im 12. Jahrhundert (Vorträge und Forschungen, Sonderband ix, 1971), 37–51Google Scholar.

8 For the wider context: Lamma, P., Comneni e Staufer, 2 vols. (Rome, 1955–1957), i. 254–9, 275, 293–301Google Scholar; ii. 121–3, 147, 239, 249, 251–2; Classen, P. ‘La politica di Manuele Comneno tra Federico Barbarossa e le città italiane’, Popolo e Stato in Italia nell'Età di Federico Barbarossa—Alessandria e la Lega Lombarda. Relazioni e communicazioni al XXXIII congresso storico subalpino per la celebrazione del VIII Centenario della Fondazione di Alessandria, Alessandria 1968 (Turin, 1970), 263–79Google Scholar.

9 Brown, H. F., ‘The Venetians and the Venetian Quarter in Constantinople, to the close of the twelfth century’, Journal of Hellenic Studies, xl (1920), 68–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Ferluga, J., Vizantiska uprava in Dalmaciji (Serbian Academy of Sciences, Monograph ccxci, Belgrade, 1957Google Scholar); Italian, transl. with revisions as: L'Amministrazione bizantina in Dalmazia (Società veneta di storia patria, Venice, 1978Google Scholar); Ferluga, J., ‘La Dalmazia fra Bisanzio, Venezia e l'Ungheria ai tempi di Manuele Comneno’, Studi Veneziani, xii (1970), 63–83Google Scholar; repr. in Ferluga, J., Byzantium on the Balkans. Studies on the Byzantine Administration and the Southern Slavs [from the VIIth to the XIIth Centuries) (Amsterdam, 1976), 193–213Google Scholar. [References are given to both editions in the form: p. 63/193, and so forth.] See now also Fine, J. V. A., The Early Medieval Balkans (Ann Arbor, 1983Google Scholar).

11 Ferluga, ‘Dalmazia fra Bisanzio’, p. 83–213. But compare Schreiner, ‘Dux von Dalmatien’, cit.

12 Munz, P., Frederick Barbarossa: a study in medieval politics (London, 1969), 328Google Scholar.

13 Abulafia, David: The Two Italies: economic relations between the Norman Kingdom of Sicily and the Northern Communes (Cambridge, 1977), 133–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 For which, see Ferluga, Amministrazione, and the articles collected in Byzantium on the Balkans, especially ‘Bisanzio e Zara’, 173–92.

15 Lamma, ‘Byzanz’, 45.

16 Strictly, it is not entirely clear whether Corfu was recovered as quickly as the Greek sources relate. Compare The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, ed. Adler, M. N., (London, 1907), 10Google Scholar, with the propaganda of the court encomiasts: Mathieu, M., ‘La Sicile normande dans la poesie byzantine’, Bollettino del Centro di Studi filologici e linguistici siciliani, ii (1954), 1–28Google Scholar. Maybe Corfu was recaptured by the Sicilians in the 1150s. Lilie, Ralph-Johannes, Handel und Politik zwischen dem byzantinischen Reich und den italienischen Kommunen Venedig, Pisa und Genua in der Epoche der Komnenen und der Angeloi (1081–1204), (Amsterdam, 1984), 194–5Google Scholar, does, however, insist (on the basis of evidence from around 1200) that Corfu remained Byzantine; but some interruption cannot really be ruled out. Lilie's book appeared when this article was already in the press; for Ancona, see especially pp. 441–2, 446–7, 472, 496–7.

17 Vasiliev, A. A., History of the Byzantine Empire, 2 vols. (Madison, Wisconsin, 1952), ii. 424Google Scholar.

18 See below for the career of Alexander of Gravina, a familiar figure at the western and eastern imperial courts.

19 Chalandon, ii. 205.

20 Kinnamos, Io., Epitome rerum ab Ioanne et Alexio Comneno gestarum, (Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae, Bonn, 1836), 170Google Scholar; cited from the translation by Charles Brand, M., The Deeds of John and Manuel Comnenus, by John Kinnamos (New York, 1976), 130Google Scholar. An earlier attempt to utilise Ancona as a base (1149) is described by Kinnamos, 102. See on this Leonhard, Seestadt Ancona, 42–6.

21 Rahewin in Freising, Otto of, Opera (MGH us. schol., Hannover, 1867), ii. 190Google Scholar.

22 Chalandon, ii. 251–2.

23 Eustathios, p. 111; Carile, ‘L'assedio’, p. 50–1.

24 Buoncompagno, p. 35 n.

25 Van Dieten, Io. Aloysius, ed., Nicetae Choniatae Historia (Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae, Series Berolensis, xi (1–2), Berlin and New York, 1975), 202CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26 Rainald von Dassel to Frederick I, in: Registrum oder merkwürdige Urkunden für die deutsche Geschichte, gesammelt und herausgegeben von H. Sudendorf, 3 vols. (Jena and Berlin, 1849–1854), ii. 131–3Google Scholar; for the history of the MSS, see Sudendorf, ii. pp. v–x. Almost the entire text is reproduced by Simonsfeld, H., Jahrbücher des deutschen Reiches unter Friedrich I., i. 1152 bis 1158 (Leipzig, 1908), 622–9Google Scholar, Anm. 88–106.

27 The adhesion of Guglielmo Marchesella, Aldruda di Bertinoro and others is described by Buoncompagno, 27–31; cf. Niketas Choniates, 202; Eustathios, passim, etc.

28 Sudendorf, ii. 131.

29 Sudendorf, loc. cit.

30 Salerno, Thus Romuald of, Chronicon, ed. Garufi, C. A. (Rerum italicarum scriptores, ser. 2, vii, 1), 265Google Scholar, indicates.

31 Sudendorf, ii. 132.

32 Sudendorf, loc. cit.

33 ‘Filium videlicet Megal. domest.’ is what Sudendorf gives (ii. 132) but both his MSS are post-medieval.

34 Kinnamos, 170.

35 ‘Qui misso ad nos comite Alex.’ (Sudendorf, ii. 132); on this passage, see Chalandon, ii. 253 n.; cf. Chalandon, ii. 190–1, 198, 205, 216, 280–1, for aspects of his career. Dr. J. S. F. Parker informed me that his researches on Byzantine-Sicilian relations led him to identify more than one Alexander of Gravina in the mid-twelfth century, presumably father and son.

36 Sudendorf, ii. 132.

37 Sudendorf, loc. cit.

38 Sudendorf, ii. 133.

39 Gli Annales Pisani di Bernardo Maragone, ed. Gentile, M. Lupo (Rerum italicarum scriptores, ser. 2, vi, 2), 17Google Scholar.

40 Kinnamos, 172–5.

41 Parker, J. S. F., ‘The attempted Byzantine alliance with the Norman Kingdom (1166–7)’, PBSR, xxiv (1956), 86–93Google Scholar; Abulafia, , Two Italies, 133, 141Google Scholar.

42 Classen, 277.

43 A good discussion of the coronation question is provided by Parker, 86; Cf. Boso, , Liber Pontificalis, ed. Duchesne, L. (Paris, 1886–1892), ii. 415, 419Google Scholar.

44 M. Natalucci, ‘L'assedio di Ancona nel 1167’, Ancona Repubblica Marinara, cit. 79–94; Lamma, , Comneni e Staufer, ii. 147Google Scholar; Giangiacomi, 129. But whether there really were important Byzantine agents in Ancona on this occasion must remain doubtful; the δοῦξ of Dalmatia was in temporary retreat after a Hungarian advance into central Dalmatia, and it is uncertain who actually was δοῦξ in 1167: Ferluga, ‘La Dalmazia fra Bisanzio’, p. 77/207.

45 Other expeditions by the German rulers into Italy proved the necessity for access to fleets if they were to achieve their objectives: compare the assaults on southern Italy planned by Barbarossa—Abulafia, Two Italies, 123–33.

46 Abulafia, Two Italies, 133.

47 Lamma, , Comneni e Staufer, i. 301–2Google Scholar.

48 Archivo di Stato, Venice, Codex diplomaticus Lanfranchi, 1100–1199, anno 1141, p. 1: and ibid., Liber Pactorum i, f. 187v–188r.

49 ibid., Codex diplomaticus Lanfranchi, anno 1145, 160; Liber Pactorum, f. 139r–v.

50 Luzzatto, G., ‘I più antichi trattati tra Venezia e le città marchigiane’, Nuovo Archivio Venelo, n.s., vi (1906), 7–8, 49–50Google Scholar. See also Leonhard, Seestadt Ancona, 33–4.

51 Buoncompagno, 13.

52 Historia Ducum Venetkorum, ed. Simonsfeld, H., MGH. SS. xiv, 81Google Scholar.

53 Buoncompagno, 17.

54 Ciavarino, C., ed., Statuti Anconitani del Mare, del Terzenale e della Dogana e Patti condiverse nazioni, i (Ancona, 1896), 61Google Scholar: ‘de lo datio che se dè pagare da quelli che vai en Costantinopoli per la chiesa de Sancto Stefano de Costantinopoli’. See now Pertusi, A., ‘The Anconitan colony in Constantinople and the report of its consul, Benvenuto, on the fall of the city’, Charanis Studies: essays in honour of Peter Charanis, ed. Laiou-Thomadakis, A. E., (New Brunswick, 1980), 199–218Google Scholar, suggesting that in the late twelfth-century the church of St. Stephen at Constantinople was already a base for Anconitan merchants.

55 Buoncompagno, 12 n.

56 Such an attempt characterizes Ancona Repubblica Marinara, cit., though one contributor is especially rebellious: G. Franceschini, ‘Ancona e le repubbliche marinare’, 56–9.

57 Carile, ‘Federico Barbarossa’, 9–17.

58 Petrucci, Armando, ed., Codice diplomatico del monastero benedettino di S. Maria di Tremiti (1005–1237), 3 vols. (Fonti per la storia d'ltalia, xcviii, Rome, 1960), iii. 277–8Google Scholar.

59 Guarnieri, Gino, ‘Intorno alle relazioni commerciali marittime nel Medio Evo fra la Toscana e gli scali adriatici Dalmati’, Archivio storico italiano, cxxv (1967), 352–64Google Scholar: Abulafia, David, ‘Dalmatian Ragusa and the Norman Kingdom of Sicily’, Slavonic and East European Review, liv (1976), 414–5, 422 and n. 45Google Scholar; Radonić, J., Acta et diplomata ragusina, i (Belgrade, 1934), 17–18Google Scholar. An agreement of 1188 between Pisa and Zadar, then under Hungarian control, is printed by Guarnieri, 361–2; this suggests that Pisan attempts to win access to Adriatic markets persisted into the late twelfth century.

60 Abulafia, David, ‘The Anconitan privileges in the kingdom of Jerusalem and the Levant trade of Ancona’, The Italian communes in the crusading kingdom of Jerusalem: a colloquium at the Van Leer Institute, Jerusalem, May 1984 (GenoaGoogle Scholar, forthcoming).

61 Abulafia, ‘Dalmatian Ragusa’, 418.

62 Buoncompagno, 15–17.

63 Buoncompagno, 17.

64 Buoncompagno, 23.

65 Lane, F. C., Venice: a maritime republic (Baltimore, 1973), 63–5Google Scholar.

66 Intense competition for the resources of the Bosnian hinterland—slaves, metals, forest products—can also be postulated. See Carter, F. W., ‘Dubrovnik: the early development of a pre-industrial city’, Slavonic and East European Review, xlvii (1969), 354–68Google Scholar.

67 Brand, C. M., Byzantium confronts the West, 1180–1204 (Cambridge, Mass., 1968), 206–21Google Scholar.

68 Abulafia, Two Italies, 89–90.

69 Dandolo, Andrea, Cronica, ed. Pastorello, E., (Rerum italicarum scriptores, ser. 2, xii, pt. 1), 249Google Scholar; Abulafia, Two Italies, 141–2.

70 Parker, 86–93; Dandolo, loc. cit.

71 Kinnamos, 280–2.

72 Abulafia, ‘Dalmatian Ragusa’, 419–22, for a possible explanation. Lilie, 493–4, disagrees, but fails to see the full point.

73 Abulafia, Two Italies, 142–4, which fails, however, to take into account the complication of Venetian involvement against Ancona.

74 Abulafia, Two Italies, 144, 147–9.

75 Buoncompagno, 14; for the earlier history of the ship see Zimolo's remarks, ibid., 15 n, and R. Heynen, Zur Entstehung des Kapitalismus in Venedig (Stuttgart, 1905).

76 Ferluga, ‘La Dalmazia fra Bisanzio’, p. 71/201; cf. Ferluga, Amministrazione bizantino, passim, where too little emphasis is placed on the Byzantine view that the Venetians were (technically) δοῦλοι of the empire. Venetian rights over Dalmatia were first enforced at the start of the eleventh century, and were given more detailed recognition in the chrysobull of 1082/4, for which see Brown, ‘Venetians’, 70.

77 Ferluga, Amministrazione, 250; cf. 270 n.

78 Ferluga, ‘La Dalmazia fra Bisanzio’, p. 73/203; cf. Guldescu, S., History of medieval Croatia (The Hague, 1964), 190–1, 246Google Scholar.

79 Abulafia, Two Italies, 83 n. 62.

80 Ferluga, ‘La Dalmazia fra Bisanzio’, pp. 66–8/196–8; 74–5/204–5.

81 Ferluga, ‘La Dalmazia fra Bisanzio’, pp. 75–6/205–6. Guarnieri, ‘Intorno alle relazioni’ prints a document of 1169 which mentions ‘Johanne comite Spalati’ (p. 360); presumably, as in Dubrovnik, a count of local origin controlled internal affairs—cf. Abulafia, ‘Dalmatian Ragusa’, 423–5.

82 Schreiner, ‘Dux von Dalmatien’, 286–7; Carile, ‘L'assedio’, 46–7; Ferluga, ‘La Dalmazia fra Bisanzio’, p. 77/207; for the obituary notice see: de Montfaucon, B., Palaeographia graeca (Paris, 1708), 47Google Scholar; and compare the entry in Polemis, D. I., The Doukai: a contribution to Byzantine prosopography, (London, 1968), §222, p. 191Google Scholar.

83 Montfaucon, 47 and Schreiner, 286–7. According to the necrology, he was named of all . For the significance of these references to Dioclea, Dalmatia, Croatia, Albania and Split, see Ferluga, Amministrazione, 262; ‘La Dalmazia fra Bisanzio’, p. 77/207.

84 Annales Pisani, 59; Buoncompagno, 34.

85 Buoncompagno, 35–9.

86 Buoncompagno, 35.

87 Buoncompagno, 37.

88 Cf. Kinnamos, 170.

89 Buoncompagno, 18.

90 La Dalmazia fra Bisanzio', p. 83/213, n. 92.

91 Buoncompagno, 10.

92 Sudendorf, ii. 132: ‘exivit ad nos cum omnibus soldariis suis’.

93 Eustathios, 112; Lamma, ‘Aldruda’, 389, n. 1.

94 Ferluga, J., ‘La Ligesse dans l'empire byzantin: contribution à l'étude de la féodalité à Byzance’, Recueil des travaux de l'Institut d'Etudes byzantines, vii (Belgrade, 1961), 97–124Google Scholar; repr. in Byzantium and the Balkans, cit., 399–425; see p. 120/422 for an example of a Genoese λιξίος of Manuel Komnenos; among the Genoese, it might be argued, individual acts of homage to the Basileus took the place of the communal subjection to which (at least in the 1080s) the Venetians were liable, as δουλοῖ of the emperor. Similarly, see Leonhard, Seestadt Ancona, 58–63, 79–81.

95 Zadar had been ‘capital’ of Byzantine Dalmatia in earlier centuries: Ferluga, ‘Bisanzio e Zara’, 189; for the use of Split by Constantine Doukas, see Smičiklas, T., Codex diplomaticus regni Croatiae, Dalmatiae et Slavoniae, ii, Diplomatica saeculi XIIcontinentes (1101–1200), (Zagreb, 1904), 130–1Google Scholar; Ferluga, ‘La Dalmazia fra Bisanzio’, p. 76–206. Buerger, Janet E., ‘Late medieval glazed pottery in Italy and surrounding areas: with specific detail from the excavations in the cathedral in Florence and in Diocletian's Palace in Split’, Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1978Google Scholar (repr. by University Microfilms, Ltd.), attributes some pottery finds, Byzantine in character, to the period of Byzantine rule in Split: pp. 109, 165–6. However, Dr David Whitehouse informs me that the attribution of these pieces is still doubtful.

96 Cf. Schreiner, 303.

97 Romuald of Salerno, 265.

98 Buoncompagno, 29–30; cf. Sudendorf, ii. 131–2.

99 Buoncompagno, 42: ‘originem contraxerat in Urbe de nobile prosapia Fraiapanum.’ Theiner, A., Codex diplomaticus dominii temporalis S. Sedis (Rome, 1861), i. 13–14Google Scholar, § xv (1144), for Aldruda's estates; for her ancestry in the powerful Roman family of Frangipane, see Carile, ‘L'assedio’, 48–9; in 1170 Otto Frangipane married a niece of Manuel Komnenos at Veroli, in the presence of Pope Alexander III—this niece, Eudochia, conceded lands to Alexander III (Archivio Segreto Vaticano, A. A. Arm. I–xviii, § 3672). Aldruda's adhesion to the anti-German, pro-Greek party is therefore no surprise.

100 Eustathios, 113–4; Lamma, ‘Aldruda’, 392.

101 Buoncompagno, 46–7.

102 Discussion by Zimolo, in Buoncompagno, 47 n.

103 Buoncompagno, 46.

104 Compare Zimolo in Buoncompagno, 47 n., and Ferluga, ‘Ligesse’, cit.

105 Niketas Choniates, 202.

106 Ferluga, ‘La Dalmatia fra Bisanzio’, p. 79/209, for references to ‘Rogerio Slauoni’, ‘Rogerius Slavone dei et imperiali gracia Dalmatie et Chroatie ducas’; there is little doubt that this is the Roger Slavus who rebelled against the authority of the King of Sicily (his relative) in 1161 and was exiled soon after—Ferluga, ‘Ligesse’, 118 (and 420), Chalandon, ii. 280, 283–5. For his earlier career: Abulafia, David, ‘The Crown and the Economy under Roger II and his successors’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, xxxvii (1983), 13Google Scholar.

107 Abulafia, ‘Dalmatian Ragusa’, 423.

108 Buoncompagno does not mention Byzantine links with Ancona in his discussion of later assaults on Ancona: see especially p. 50.

109 Smičiklas, ii. 130–1, 138.

110 For the buildings, see Giangiacomi, Ancona, 386–7, where the portico of S. Maria is described as ‘facciata romanico-bizantina’.

111 Buoncompagno, 34, implies that Ancona was a ‘feudum’ of Manuel Komnenos, but he introduces the link between Ancona and Constantinople in an oblique way—his prime aim is to introduce Constantine Doukas, and place some fine words in his mouth. In the nineteenth century the siege of Ancona (then dated to 1174 rather than 1173) was the subject of a number of romantic works: Cannonieri, G., L'assedio di Ancona dell'anno 1174 per Cristiano arcivescovo di Magonza, luogotenente di Barbarossa (Florence, 1848Google Scholar), has what purports to be a ‘Conclusione Storica’ by F. Soragni (pp. 225–40); cf. Giangiacomi, 396 and 403–4 for a similar work. Cannonieri's work reads as a bad pastiche of Manzoni; its fantastic tale of Guglielmo Gosia and his beloved Virginia is, alas, without any historical foundation.

112 My thanks are due to the Faculty of Archaeology, History and Letters of the British School at Rome for a grant in aid of research, which enabled me to make extensive use of the Vatican Library (and Archives) and the library of the German Historical Institute in Rome, as well as to visit Ancona.