An Armchair Traveller's History Of Apulia Part 2

this beast is Frederick, the so-called Emperor.

Pope Gregory IX GOING DOWN FROM THE GARGANO into the Southern Capitanata and the flat Tavoliere that stretches as far as Foggia, you enter the region most closely a.s.sociated with the Hohenstaufen Emperor Frederick II (11941250).

He captured the imagination of the thirteenth century English chronicler Matthew Paris, who called him "Frederick, greatest of earthly princes, the wonder of the world", and he continues to fascinate. Not even Adolf Hitler was immune to his spell. Among the travellers, he appealed to Norman Douglas in particular, as a "colossal shade". For Apulians, "Our Emperor, Federico di Svevia" is beyond question a Pugliese, by choice if not birth, and there is n.o.body they admire more. They remember Hannibal from his elephants and Bohemond from his tomb at Canosa, but Frederick made his home among them.

What did he look like, this great Apulian, who terrified both friends and enemies? All Western chroniclers, even the most hos-tile, agree that Frederick was handsome and impressive. The face on his gold coins shows a fine profile. Yet an Arab who saw him says he was covered with red hair, bald and myopic, and would have fetched a poor price in a slave market.

His father, Emperor Henry VI, became King of Sicily and ruler of Apulia by right of his wife, Constance of Hauteville, burning his opponents alive on the day after his coronation, blinding and castrating a seven year old rival for the throne. At Henry's death in 1197 the child Frederick was crowned king. His mother died shortly after, placing her son under the Pope's protection, and he grew up in Palermo, so neglected that he begged for food in the streets. He made Arab friends there, from whom he learned Arabic and an interest in science, while from his Greek subjects he discovered how the Byzantines saw their own emperor as G.o.d's representative on earth. His first wife, the Count of Provence's sister, taught him the polished manners of the Provenal court, so that he became famous for his charm.

The 'Puer Apuliae' (Boy from Apulia) as he was nicknamed, spent his early manhood in Germany, winning all hearts and vanquis.h.i.+ng a compet.i.tor for the German throne. When crowned King of the Romans at Aix-la-Chapelle he proclaimed a Crusade something he would live to regret before returning to Italy in 1220. As he expressed it, "We have chosen our kingdom of Sicily for our very own from among all our other lands, and taken the whole realm for our residence, and although radiant with the glorious t.i.tle of Caesar, we feel there is nothing ign.o.ble in being called 'a man from Apulia'." He always came back to the plains and marshes of the Tavoliere, the uplands of the Murge and the forests of Monte Vulture.

The chronicler Villani, writing half a century later, tells us Frederick "built strong, rich fortresses in all the chief cities of Sicily and Apulia that still remain; and he made a park for sport in the marsh at Foggia in Apulia, and hunting parks near Gravina and near Melfi in the mountains. In winter he lived at Foggia, in summer in the mountains, to enjoy the sport." One of the reasons the Emperor loved Apulia was the opportunity it gave for hunting and hawking. In those days much of the landscape was covered by dense wood-land, containing wolves, wild boar, deer and game birds he him-self introduced pheasants whilst the marshes were full of wild fowl.

Years after, one of Frederick's sons, King Enzo of Sardinia, by then a prisoner in a cage at Bologna, sang in his canzonetta (a popular secular song): "e vanne in Puglia piana la magna Capitanata/la dov'e lo mio core notte e dia" ("go to flat Apulia, to the great Capitanata, where my heart is, night and day"). Enzo was remembering days spent hunting with his father.

As the Emperor drew older, during his unending battle with the Papacy, he became bitter and cruel. Most reports of his savagery date from this period. His enemies claimed that he crucified prisoners of war. They also spread a story that he gave two men under sentence of death a heavy meal, and then sent one out hunting and the other to bed; after several hours both were disembowelled to see who had digested his food better.

Gradually the smear campaign took effect, and Frederick found himself surrounded by friends who had turned into secret enemies. His physician gave him a cup of poison, which Frederick pretended to drink, spilling it down his chest. The dregs were given to a condemned criminal, who promptly died in agony as did the doctor shortly afterwards.

The Friar Salimbene says of Emperor Frederick: "Of faith in G.o.d he had none. He was cunning, deceitful, avaricious, l.u.s.tful, malicious, hot-tempered, and yet sometimes he could be a most agreeable man, when he would be kind and courteous, full of amus.e.m.e.nt, cheerful, loving life, with all sorts of imaginative ideas. He knew how to read, write and sing, how to make songs and music. He was handsome and well built, if only of medium height. I have seen him myself, and once I loved him... he could speak many different languages, and, in short, had he been a good Catholic and loved G.o.d and his Church, few Emperors could have matched him."

Frederick dazzled and terrified his contemporaries, who credited him with possessing sinister, magic powers. It was not only the Popes who were genuinely convinced that there was something Satanic about the Emperor. Throughout Italy, including Apulia, the Franciscan 'Spirituals', the wandering heretic friars trying to live what they thought was the original Franciscan life, identified him with the Antichrist of the prophecy of Abbot Joachim of Fiore, the fiendish monarch who was going to destroy the Church in its present, corrupt form in 1260. Unfortunately Frederick destroyed the prophecy, by dying ten years too soon. When he died, a monk dreamt that he saw him riding down to h.e.l.l with his knights through the flaming lava of Mount Etna.

On the other hand, there is plenty of plausible evidence that the Emperor died a good Christian, while his surviving supporters, who included a fair number of orthodox clerics, were clearly devoted to him. There were even men who believed he would one day return, like King Arthur, and usher in a new golden age.

Frederick of Hohenstaufen was a fascinating enigma during his lifetime, and he has remained one ever since.

Certainly no ruler made a more powerful or more enduring im-pact on Apulian folk memory. The ma.s.sive strongholds that he built all over Apulia, and that serve as his monuments, are often said to conceal h.o.a.rds of gold guarded by his ghost. In Pugliese legend Frederick is still Stupor Mundi, "the wonder of the world."

9.

Castel del Monte

...on clear days one can see Castel del Monte, the Hohenstaufen eyrie, s.h.i.+ning yonder...

Norman Douglas, "Old Calabria"

AMONG THE MANY HUNTING-BOXES built by Frederick II, the last was Castel del Monte. You come closest to him here. It is the most beautiful and mysterious of all his strongholds.

The Emperor stamped his complex personality and his extra-ordinarily wide interests on this little castle. His fondness for mathematics could be seen in the plan, his love of nature in the decoration, and his vision of himself as the heir of the Caesars in the cla.s.sical statues that adorned the rooms. He had a stone head brought from an ancient temple near Andria, with a bronze band fastened around its brow which bore the Greek inscription "on the calends of May at sunrise I shall have a head of gold." He had it placed above the great entrance door that faces east. On the first day of May, the rays of the rising sun gilded this Imperial diadem, in the same way that the heads of Roman emperors had been wreathed in sun-rays on their gold coins.

There are innumerable theories about the design of Castel del Monte, many of them wildly fanciful even one that it was based on the pyramid of Cheops but there is general agreement that it was Frederick's own creation. Begun about 1240, after his return from the Holy Land, its octagonal plan is not unlike the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. Here, however, the octagon is carried to extremes, each point having an octagonal tower and the central courtyard eight sides. On both floors there are eight rooms (although only five of the towers have rooms, the others containing spiral-staircases) while in the courtyard there was an enormous octagonal bath, cut from a single block of white marble.

Although the plan was eastern, the decoration was French in inspiration. The interior retains Gothic fauns and other sylvan deities on the keystones of its vaulted rooms and windows. It still has white marble columns streaked with lavender and rust, crowned by silver grey capitals carved with vines, ivy and agave. A grey marble frieze linking the tops of the windows and running above the huge fireplace is almost intact. The mosaic that covered the vaults has gone, but traces of the octagonal floor-tiles give some idea of what the decoration must have been like in Frederick's day. The standard of comfort was far in advance of its time. There were flus.h.i.+ng water-closets in the towers and even a bathroom where the Emperor took a daily bath, the water coming through lead pipes from a cistern on the roof. Not too big, the rooms would have been well-heated in winter, deliciously cool in summer.

All Frederick's palaces were sumptuously furnished, with a luxury almost undreamed of anywhere else in the Western Europe of his time. Silk hangings woven with gold thread, to clothe the walls and to curtain the windows, always travelled with him, servants going ahead to put them up. Huge cus.h.i.+ons softened the stone benches around the walls, while the beds were made with silk or linen sheets. The marble table at which he dined after hunting was laid with a linen cloth and covered with gold and silver plate, and with Chinese porcelain which had been given to him by the Sultan of Cairo. Cla.s.sical statues stood in niches in the walls; one of them was captured in his baggage at the siege of Parma, giving rise to a silly story that he wors.h.i.+pped idols. The tiled floors were carpeted by oriental rugs, light provided by candles in torcheres of rock crystal or enamelled bronze. There were lecterns for the books stored flat in cupboards along the walls.

Among these books was the "Toledoth Yeshua", a pseudo-biography of Christ written during the eighth century by an anonymous Jew, who claimed that Jesus was a b.a.s.t.a.r.d begotten by a Roman soldier on a perfumer's wife, and had learned magic in Egypt before setting out to lead Israel astray; arrested as a sorcerer, he was stoned before being hanged on the Pa.s.sover and then went down to h.e.l.l where he was tormented in boiling mud. Possession of this luridly blasphemous work might seem to confirm the suspicions of some contemporaries that their strange, slightly sinister emperor had ceased to be a Christian, although this was not necessarily the case.

He displayed considerable learning in his own, less controversial book, the elegant "De Arte Venandi c.u.m Avibus" ("The Art of Hunting with Birds"). Based partly on Arab treatises on falconry, but written largely from personal observation, this reveals the author's deep love and understanding of hawks; significantly, the mews that housed them at Castel del Monte could only be reached through his bedroom. Sultans competed to present him with young Arabian birds of prey while he sent all the way to Iceland to buy his favourite gyrfalcons. He was the first European ruler to introduce a close season for game.

Frederick liked to hunt in the woods around Castel del Monte, using hounds or even cheetahs for ground game, although he usually preferred to fly his falcons. He was accompanied by his b.a.s.t.a.r.d sons and by scions of royal or n.o.ble families from all over Europe and the Middle East. During the winter he did not return until dusk, not stopping to eat since he took only one meal a day. In the evenings, he and his courtiers discussed the nature of the soul and the universe, listened to readings from Aristotle, or sang poems to music of their own composition.

After the death of the Emperor's son, King Manfred, the rulers of the Regno seldom if ever came to Castel del Monte, although it was in working order as late as 1459. Then it was abandoned, and the great bronze doors removed. For centuries farmers were allowed to stable their animals there, brigands hiding in the towers. At last the Italian government bought the castle from the Carafa family in 1876 and a trickle of tourists began to visit it, including Augustus Hare and Janet Ross.

"It is a three hours drive (carriage with 3 horses, 20 francs) across the fruit-covered plain, sprinkled with small domed towers, upon which the figs are dried upon tiers of masonry round the domes", reported Hare, who was staying at Trani. "From the point where the carriage-road comes to an end, it is an hour's walk, over a wilderness covered with stones, where the sheep find scant subsistence in the short gra.s.s between the great tufts of lilies." But for years few tourists came here.

An old custodian, living in a hut nearby, told Mrs. Ross how delighted he was to see her, "and said his life was very lonely, and that if it were not for Vigilante (his dog) he should not be able to bear it." He dismissed tales of the place being haunted at night by the great Emperor as "only fit for poor peasants."

Even so, "what recalled Frederick II vividly to my mind were the hawks, sailing about and shrieking sharply as they flew in and out of their nests in the walls of the castle", wrote Janet. She admired the view from the roof, where she could see the entire coast from the Gargano down to Monopoli, with the white towns of Barletta, Trani and Bisceglie. Inland, she could see Andria, Corato and Ruvo: "We understood why the peasants call Castle del Monte 'La Spia delle Puglie' (the spy-hole of Puglia)."

Although the Emperor had many other homes in Apulia, Castel del Monte best preserves his brooding, brilliant majesty.

10.

The Emperor's Faithful Andria

...her burghers are still proud of the preference shown by the great Emperor of the middle ages for his faithful town.

Janet Ross, "The Land of Manfred"

IN 1818 THE DISTANT OUTLINE of Andria's three campanili appeared to Keppel Craven "like the minarets of a Turkish mosque". After a pleasant visit to the city, he included it among the Apulian cities that were famous for "the hospitable, polished character of their inhabitants". In Roman times it was a staging post on the Via Traiana. Since it was the nearest important city to Castel del Monte, only eight miles to the north, Frederick II appears to have spent a good deal of time at Andria.

Janet Ross drove here from Trani and gives us a vivid idea of what the neighbouring landscape looked like during the 1880s: rich but dull country, teeming with corn, almond trees and olives, the large fields divided by rough stone walls. It is singular to see such vast stretches of country without any cottages or farm-houses. The ground was splendidly tilled, seemingly by invisible hands, for it was a holiday, so we saw no peasants about, and look in vain for their houses. Large cisterns for collecting rain-water were dotted about, and the only living creatures we saw were the men engaged in hauling water for their animals... On approaching Andria we crossed a "Tratturo", one of the broad gra.s.s-grown highways which since time immemorial have served for the yearly emigration of the immense herds and flocks of Apulia to their summer pastures in the mountains of Calabria and Abruzzi.

She goes on to account, accurately enough, for the strange lack of human habitation: In former times all this country was subject to perpetual inroads from the Turks, and the general insecurity was so great that the peasants were forced to live in large towns. This custom still prevails, and explains the size of Apulian towns...

The Emperor Frederick was obviously very fond of the elegant little city, presumably because of its unswerving loyalty. When the Pope tried to turn Southern Italy against him in 1228, while he was on crusade in the Holy Land, unlike all too many Apulian cities it stayed faithful. According to tradition, Andria gave Frederick an emotional welcome at his triumphant return from Palestine, "five youths of n.o.ble family" chanting verses in his honour. He rewarded the city with valuable privileges.

The Porta Sant' Andrea, known in Frederick's day as the Porta Imperatore, still bears the inscription that he ordered to be placed above it, beginning "ANDREA FELIX NOSTER". The Teutonic Knights, no less loyal than the citizens to the Emperor, built a church near here, Sant' Agostino, where the remains of beautiful thirteenth century frescoes have been uncovered from beneath the Baroque plasterwork.

Somewhere in the crypt of the duomo (cathedral church) lie the coffins of two of Frederick's empresses, Yolande of Jerusalem and Isabella of England. Heiress to the crusader kingdom of Jerusalem and a queen in her own right, Yolande is said to have been marvel-lously beautiful, but she died at only sixteen. Her successor, King John's daughter and an old maid of twenty when the Emperor married her by proxy at the palace of Westminster in 1234, pleased him by her wit and her learning. She too died young, however, after a mere seven years of marriage. The lives of these two young ladies cannot have been particularly happy, since both of them must swiftly have disappeared into their husband's harem, described by a contemporary chronicler in a chilling phrase as "the labyrinth of his Gomorrah".

Unlike Castel del Monte, Andria's importance did not end with the Hohenstaufen. At the end of the fourteenth century it became a duchy, created for the del Balzo, who built a castle in the city centre to ensure obedience. During her visit here, Mrs. Ross met one of them when she inspected the church of San Domenico that they had built in 1398: "An old man who lived in the refectory of the deserted convent asked us whether we had seen the tomb of the Duke, and on our answering in the negative, led us into a chapel out of the picturesque cloister. With pride he pointed to a rudely painted board let into the wall, on which was inscribed 'Hic jacet Corpus Serenissimi ducis Domini Francisci di Baucio fundatoris huius conventus 1482, aet 72'; and proceeded to unhook it. We then saw a long hole in the wall, in which was placed an open coffin with gla.s.s on the side facing us. In this lay a brown mummy, and a few white hairs still remaining on the head, and one leg slightly drawn up as though the Duke had died in great pain. To our horror, the old man laid hold of the mummy, and danced it up and down in the coffin; he was quite disappointed at my refusing to feel how light it was, and explained that this was one of the 'divertimenti' (amus.e.m.e.nts) that Andria could offer to strangers." (The duke's mummy is still there).

Born in 1410, the Duke had fought for Aragon against Anjou in the struggle for the throne of the Two Sicilies. A family who claimed Visigoth royal blood, the del Balzo's ancestral castle of Les Baux (or Balthasar) in Provence had belonged to them for so long that they were convinced they descended from one of the Three Kings and bore a Star in the East for their coat-of-arms. They first arrived in the Regno in 1264 as henchmen of Charles of Anjou.

King Ferrante's second son Federigo, who was to be the last Aragonese ruler of Naples from 14961504, originally bore the t.i.tle of Duke of Andria, since the heir to the throne of the Regno was always the Duke of Calabria. The most likeable of his dynasty, Federigo's reign ended in tragedy, his entire kingdom being taken from him by the King of Spain. Cesare Borgia was briefly Duke, but it seems very unlikely that he ever came here.

Like most Apulian cities, Andria was ruled by feudal lords until the Napoleonic invasion, pa.s.sing in 1525 to a branch of the Carafa family, who besides being Dukes of Andria were Dukes of Noja, Counts of Ruvo and Lords of Corato and Castel del Monte. They built a great palace on the site of the old Del Balzo fortress, which Pacich.e.l.li found most congenial; he writes of a luxuriant roof garden and "a n.o.ble and numerous ducal court".

In October 1590 Fabrizio Carafa, the handsome young Duke of Andria, was murdered in Venosa, just a day's ride from Andria, in one of sixteenth century Italy's most notorious crimes of pa.s.sion. He was conducting an affair with the beautiful but neglected Donna Maria d'Avalos, wife of the h.o.m.os.e.xual Carlo Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa, famous for his eerie motets and madrigals. Re-turning to Venosa unexpectedly from a hunting trip, Gesualdo was infuriated by the flagrant affront to his honour. He broke down the door of the bed-chamber and killed the pair as they lay in bed, shooting the duke with an arquebus, then finis.h.i.+ng him off with a halberd, before stabbing Donna Maria repeatedly with a stiletto. Despite the Carafa family's fury, he escaped scot-free at this date a full scale military campaign would have been needed to bring an Apulian magnate to justice.

Just outside Andria is the celebrated shrine of Santa Maria dei Miracoli. In 1576 a carpenter from the city, Giannantonio Tucchio, saw the Virgin in a dream, who told him to go to a cave in a ravine and light a candle before her image. An old man, he was nervous about visiting such a desolate place, but after she appeared twice more, went with a young friend, the lawyer Annibale Palombino. They found a picture on a wall and left a lamp burning before it. When they returned a week later, they found the lamp still burning, miraculously refilled with overflowing oil. Then Palombino's mare went lame; every remedy failing, he tried the lamp oil and she was immediately healed. After this, humans began to be cured of diseases and pilgrims came flocking. In 1617 a magnificent Baroque church and a Benedictine monastery were built over the grotto by the great architect Cosimo Fanzago. A tablet records that in 1859 King Ferdinand II, very much at one with his subjects in matters of religion, came here and prayed for a cure. The shrine is now served by friars, crowds still descending the fifty-two steps into the grotto to pray before an ancient fresco on the wall of what was once a Byzantine cave chapel.

Ettore Carafa, Count of Ruvo and heir to the duchy of Andria, can be seen either as a patriot or as a quisling. Visiting Paris during the French Revolution, he became a fanatical revolutionary, wearing a tri-coloured waistcoat and distributing copies of the "Declaration of the Rights of Man" when he went home. As soon as the Neapolitan Republic was proclaimed, he raised a troop of like-minded volunteers to help the French subdue Apulia. In March 1799 he led his men in the storming of Andria, his birthplace. Its citizens, who had erected an enormous crucifix in the main square to protect them, fought desperately, pouring boiling oil from their windows. The besiegers put the city to the sword, and by Carafa's own account the casualties on both sides amounted to 4,000. The usual looting took place; later a dragoon was arrested in Barletta nearby for trying to sell the dress of Andria's statue of the Madonna del Carmine. Ironically, after being captured and condemned to death, Carafa, that enemy of privilege, demanded to be beheaded instead of hanged, as was his privilege as a n.o.ble; he also insisted on dying face upward. The King commented, "so the little duke has gone on playing the hard man [guapo] till the very end." The request was granted, Ettore's head being removed with a saw in place of the customary axe.

The Carafa palace still stands at Andria, a huge dilapidated building of dingy brick. During the nineteenth century it was re-furbished by the Spagnoletti, formerly the ducal stewards, who had bought out their masters; eventually they were to rank among Apulia's biggest landowners and wine-producers, acquiring a papal t.i.tle. They have long since deserted this forlorn barrack.

The dying King Ferdinand II stayed at Andria in January 1859, apparently in the Carafa palace. He was on his way to Bari, inspecting Apulia for the last time, and came here to see the San Ferdinando agricultural colony. Very much a benevolent despot, the king had established the colony over twenty years before as a refuge for labourers whom he had forcibly evicted from the Barletta salt-marshes, to save them from the lethal malaria. In contrast to Ferdinand's paternal approach, the Risorgimento would bring poverty and despair.

"I was told that every morning, at daybreak, over ten thousand labourers leave Andria, many of them mounted on donkeys, mules or horses, as their fields are miles away", Janet Ross recorded after her visit in 1888: "The shepherds drive their flocks of goats and sheep and the herdsmen their cattle through the streets, making sleep impossible." She did not realise that the mounted labourers were going out as sweated labour in work gangs, that many of the city's population were dying of hunger. She was puzzled that there was no inn of any kind here despite the 40,000 inhabitants, and wondered why the very few shops were so poor.

During the year after Mrs. Ross's visit to Andria, Colonel Caracciolo, who commanded the local carabinieri, reported, "Entire families have had no food for several days. They wander through the streets and are a horrifying sight. Any description of them might seem to exaggerate. Yet many go so hungry that they cannot stand and have to stay in bed." Eighty per cent of the male population were landless labourers, all too frequently unemployed and totally penniless. They lived in slum-dwellings or 'grottoes', four out of five being illiterate. It was a very long time before their condition improved. In 1914 Edward Hutton observed, "the place is like a vast peasant city, the like of which no other province of Italy knows."

Today, however, Andria is a pleasant, prosperous little city with charming inhabitants. They have regained all their ancient spirit. "Most cultivated and with the finest manners are the Andriesi", commented Pacich.e.l.li in the seventeenth century. The modern Andriesi are just as amiable.

Andria is certainly one of the best places to go looking for the Emperor Frederick's ghost, especially its cathedral and the landscape around the city. Together with Castel del Monte, this is the heart of the Hohenstaufen country.

11.

The Land of Manfred

Fair was he, handsome, and of n.o.ble air Dante, "Purgatorio, III"

THE OTHER ROYAL GHOST of Apulia is Frederick's son, Manfred. Like his father, he loved Apulia, where he was born, hunting there whenever possible. "The peasants still speak with pride and affection of 'our great Emperor', and of his son, 'our King Manfred', so that the chivalrous figure of the 'Bello e biondo' (handsome and fair-haired) son of Frederick seemed to haunt me at every turn", Janet Ross wrote. She was obsessed with him, calling her book on Apulia "The Land of Manfred".

He was born in the castle of Venosa in 1231, one of Frederick's b.a.s.t.a.r.d children by Bianca Lancia, his father making him Count of Monte Sant'Angelo and Prince of Taranto. When Frederick lay dying in 1250, he named him regent of the kingdom since his half-brother, Emperor Conrad IV, was away in Germany. When Conrad died four years later poisoned with powdered diamonds by Manfred, according to his enemies he seized the throne, even though Conrad had left an heir, the baby Conradin. In 1258 he was crowned King of Sicily, soon controlling not only the Mezzogiorno but much of central Italy.

The following year he married a Greek princess, Helena, daughter of Michael Angelus, Despot of Epirus. Her dowry was Corfu together with several towns across the Adriatic. The marriage seems to have been a happy one, and there were three sons and a daughter.

Had Manfred been content with his southern kingdom, he might have founded a lasting dynasty, but he wanted to rule all Italy and the Papacy was implacably hostile, terrified of being hemmed in by the Hohenstaufen north and south. Successive popes did their best to destroy "the sultan of Lucera", offering his crown to a son of Henry III of England, without success. But in 1263 it was accepted by the ruthless Charles of Anjou, brother of the French king, St Louis.

Manfred ignored the threat and spent all his time hunting in Apulia. When the eagle-faced Charles arrived at the head of a French army in February 1266, Manfred met him outside Benevento, with heavily armoured German knights, Saracens and the barons of Apulia. The king sent in his Germans, his crack troops, too soon, their charge was beaten off and the Apulian barons rode away. Manfred, who might have saved himself, died fighting. Pope Clement IV wrote, "Our dear son Charles is in peaceful possession of the whole realm, having in his hands the putrid corpse of that pestilential man, his wife, his children and his treasure."

An Apulian Dominican recorded that "on 28 February news arrived that King Manfred and his army had been routed near Benevento... After a few days it was learnt that King Manfred had been found dead on the battlefield. Queen Helena, waiting for news at Lucera, fainted from grief. The poor young woman did not know what to do, since all the barons and courtiers left, as they usually do in such cases."

The only people who did not abandon her were some citizens of Trani Messer Monualdo and his wife and a Messer Amerusio. They advised her to go to their city and sail for Epirus with her children, Amerusio sending a message to get a galley ready. "They reached Trani on the night of 3 March but could not sail because the wind was wrong", continues the friar. "Queen Helena and Amerusio hid in the castle, where they had been warmly welcomed by the castellan." But agents of Pope Clement discovered they were there, forcing the castellan to arrest them and raise the drawbridge. On 7 March King Charles's men-at-arms came for the queen, "and they took her and her four children with all their treasure away by night, no one knows where."

Two years later, Manfred's nephew, Conradin of Hohenstaufen (Emperor Conrad's son) marched down from Germany. Many supporters were waiting for him in Apulia, where Manfred's Saracens still held out at Lucera. But Charles intercepted Conradin's army, capturing and beheading the sixteen year old king.

Meanwhile, Manfred's wife and children had been imprisoned at Nocera, where Queen Helena died in 1271. The girl was rescued after eighteen years, but the boys remained in prison for the rest of their lives, King Charles's successor considerately ordering their chains to be removed in 1295. One at least was still alive in 1309, the very last Hohenstaufen.

Manfred left a no less abiding memory than Frederick II. "Biondo era e bello e di gentile aspetto" ("golden hair, and n.o.ble dignity his features show'd"), wrote Dante, born the year before he died, who placed him in Purgatory with the certainty of going to Heaven after he had purged his sins. This impression of the fair-haired king's good looks and charm was echoed by the Florentine chronicler Giovanni Villani, Dante's near contemporary, although he had some unpleasant things to say about him: Manfred was beautiful in person, and very like his father, but even more dissolute in every way; a musician and singer, he loved having jesters, minstrels and beautiful wh.o.r.es around him, and always dressed in green. He was unusually generous, courteous and amiable, and as a result much loved and popular; yet his entire way of life was given up to sensuality, as he cared for neither G.o.d nor the saints, only for fleshly pleasures.

It has to be admitted, too, that the king also had a slightly sinister reputation; for instance, that he owned a magic ring that could summon up demons.

You are just as close to King Manfred at Castel del Monte or Andria as you are to the Emperor Frederick, and his name is commemorated all over Apulia, although he built (or rebuilt) fewer castles than his father. Like Frederick, he loved Puglia, whose people have never forgotten him. Janet Ross had every reason to call it "The Land of Manfred."

Part III.

The Tavoliere.

12.

Foggia and the Tavoliere.