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Trois empereurs furent couronnés à Rome, pendant que le pape résidait à Avignon : Henri VII (1312), Louis IV (1328) et Charles IV (1355). La présente contribution suggère que ces empereurs ne sont pas simplement entrés dans un conflit insurmontable entre Empire et commune. Beaucoup d’Italiens percevaient les souverains transalpins comme porteurs de justice et d’ordre. Au lieu de critiquer l’idée impériale, les (pré-)humanistes du XIVe siècle ont renforcé le mythe impérial en appliquant un langage classique pour parler des empereurs du Saint-Empire. En écrivant l’histoire impériale, des auteurs comme Albertino Mussato et Ferreto de’ Ferreti visaient à imiter les anciens. En conséquence, ils se sont concentrés sur les aspects triomphaux des couronnements impériaux à Rome. Ce n’est pas le couronnement dans la basilique Saint-Pierre qui a suscité un intérêt particulier, mais l’avènement dans la ville et l’interaction avec le sénat et le peuple de Rome (SPQR). En raison de l’absence du pape, Henri VII et Louis IV pouvaient en effet agir indépendamment dans la « Ville Éternelle ». Tous deux se sont réunis avec le SPQR sur la colline du Capitole. Charles IV, cependant, a tenu la promesse qu’il avait faite au pape et n’est resté qu’un jour à Rome pour son couronnement en 1355. Les lettres de Francesco Pétrarque et de Niccolò Beccari lui fournissaient néanmoins un discours classique qui aurait pu appuyer ses revendications d’indépendance vis-à-vis du pape. Les empereurs du Saint-Empire furent présentés comme les restaurateurs de la res publica. Il semble que la présence impériale dans une Rome sans pape ait accru la conscience (et l’intérêt à l’égard) du passé antique de la ville.

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Introduction

1Three emperors were crowned in Rome, while the pope was residing in Avignon: Henry VII (1312), Louis IV (1328) and Charles IV (1355). This contribution sheds light on the impact of these events in Italy and especially on the classicizing discourse that Italian authors used to describe the emperors’ presence in Rome. It deals primarily with sources discussing Henry VII and Louis IV: both emperors remained in the Eternal City for several months and both held assemblies with the Roman people on the Capitoline Hill. Charles IV, however, had to promise the pope that he would remain in Rome only for one day. He obeyed – to the disappointment of prominent Italian observers.

  • 1 Len Scales argued that the absence of a central and coordinating power after the Hohenstaufen in f (...)
  • 2 For Francesco da Barberino see Brilli 2016. On Cola di Rienzo, see for instance: Lee 2018, p. 125- (...)
  • 3 Cavino 1991, p. 2; Schmitthenner 1923, p. 25, 26, 61.

2In this period, the idea of imperial restoration in Italy was not at all abandoned.1 Letters, chronicles, and treatises show that Italian intellectuals were fascinated by the imperial concept and defended the idea of a universal empire. Dante Alighieri, Francesco Petrarch, Cola di Rienzo (who even presented himself as the bastard son of Henry VII) and others wrote letters to the contemporary Holy Roman Emperor in order to convince him to re-establish the empire in Italy.2 To explain the unstable situation of their times, they pointed at the absence of imperial rule in Italy. Italians believed that the elected rex Romanorum was responsible for taking care of the Italian parts of the empire, but they also elaborated the idea that the so-called ‘king of the Romans’ had no rights outside the German lands, if he was not crowned in Rome.3

  • 4 For the general acceptance of the framework of a universal Roman Empire, one can point at the cont (...)
  • 5 For the pro-imperial sentiments in fourteenth-century Rome: Holstein 2006; Internullo 2016, p. 343
  • 6 Falkeid 2017.
  • 7 Riccobaldo da Ferrara, II, p. 751. In these accounts, Pope Boniface VIII refused to give the imper (...)

3The Holy Roman Emperors were still generally considered to descend in one continuous line from their ancient predecessors.4 Therefore, it is not surprising that Italians who showed a renewed interest in ancient history, followed and described the imperial arrival and presence in Rome with great interest. Imitating the language of ancient authors, they provided the contemporary Holy Roman Emperors with a powerful imperial discourse. The transalpine kings were called cesars and were presented as the legitimate rulers of Italy, who should be brought to the Capitol in triumph to restore the res publica and to accept the imperium not from the pope but from the Roman people. This happened in a period, in which the pope stayed in Avignon and thus provided the emperor with the possibility to claim Rome for himself.5 As Unn Falkeid argued, the resistance to the Avignon papacy and its claims to plenitude of power formed a common theme in the writings of prominent Italian writers.6 This same resistance also led Italians to engage with the topic of the empire and its history. Proto-humanist authors such as Riccobaldo of Ferrara and Benvenuto da Imola critically recounted in their histories, how Pope Boniface VIII claimed to be Cesar himself.7

  • 8 Hankins 2010, p. 462: suggests that res publica signified any government that serves the common go (...)
  • 9 Judge 2008, p. 142.
  • 10 See for a discussion of the term and its use: Suerbaum 1961. Therefore, it is not surprising that (...)
  • 11 Martin of Troppau, Chronicon pontificum et imperatorum: Augustus auxerat rem publicam; Hadrian rem (...)

4The imperial presence in a popeless fourteenth-century Rome stimulated contemporaries to contemplate on the foundations of the empire as a non-ecclesiastical political structure. In the passages that present the emperor’s (sometimes wished for) deeds in Rome, we witness a recurrent usage of the res publica concept. A still dominant scholarly perspective associates humanist political thought with republicanism and singles out the Italian city-states, describing them as independent “republics”. But res publica should not be translated as “republic” in a modern sense.8 In antiquity, the expression did not refer to a republican form of government but was used mostly to signify “all interests of the Roman people”.9 Important fourteenth-century Italian authors used the term res publica not as something in opposition to imperial rule, but as a harmonious part of it. In doing so, they continued an ancient as well as a medieval tradition.10 The most popular historical account between the thirteenth and fifteenth century, namely Martin of Troppau’s Chronicle of Popes and Emperors, transmitted the same idea: Augustus promoted the res publica, Hadrian set the res publica in order with the most just laws, and so on: good emperors were considered defenders of the res publica.11

Henry VII

  • 12 The Carroccio was placed on the Capitoline Hill in a monument with an inscription that referred to (...)
  • 13 Thumser 1996. The use of the term SPQR was itself already an ideological choice, Beneš 2009.
  • 14 Kantorowicz 1927, II, 257-65: “Zu den Augustalen Friedrichs II.”.
  • 15 Meredith 1994.

5Although Frederick II had not set foot on Roman soil since his imperial coronation in 1220, the last Staufen emperor had increased the expectations of a Roman renewal and had impacted Italian modes of imperial thought. After his victory in Cortenuova in 1237, the emperor had sent the conquered Milanese Carroccio to Rome to be exposed – against the pope’s wishes – on the Capitol as a sign of his imperial triumph.12 Frederick’s present was accompanied by a letter addressed to the senate and people of Rome (SPQR), in which the emperor expressed his attachment to the city of Rome and his wish to elevate the Urbs, which in his eyes remained the causa imperii, to former glory.13 On his augustalis, which had a wide dissemination in Italy, Frederick II was modelled with a laurel wreath after the example of Augustus.14 Also, on his triumphal Arch in Capua Frederick consciously imitated an ancient Formensprache.15

  • 16 Petralia 2016, p. 20.
  • 17 Const. 4.2, 1906, nr 644 (19 June 1311), p. 606-13. Ordo D in Elze 1960, p. 61-69, nr xvii. The pr (...)
  • 18 Const. 4.2, nr 644, p. 612.
  • 19 This again is a revision of Bowsky 1960, who postulated that primarily the city-states revolted, P (...)
  • 20 A good recent reconstruction of the events is Görich 2016. On Henry’s Romzug more generally see Pa (...)

6The reign of Frederick II had prepared Italian minds for an alternative conception of imperial rule: one that did not depend upon the pope, but that was modelled after ancient examples. Henry VII was elected rex Romanorum in 1308, just when the French Pope Clement V had turned his back on Rome and Italy. Traditionally Henry has been interpreted as a naïve representative of a medieval and universal past, but recent voices ask for a revision of this view.16 In 1312, for the first time in the existence of the Holy Roman Empire, an imperial coronation took place in Rome without the presence of the supreme pontiff. Since Clement V resided in Avignon, he commissioned his most important prelates to perform the coronation and represent his person.17 Because of the papal absence, the traditional coronation program had to be modified: for instance, the foot kiss and genuflection of the emperor before the pope could not be performed.18 According to the papal orders, the emperor had to be crowned before “the altar of blessed Peter”, but when Henry arrived in the Eternal City on 6 May 1312, he found Saint Peter’s Basilica occupied by hostile armies. Robert of Anjou, King of Naples, feared the revival of imperial claims in Italy and had started a coalition to prevent the coronation.19 In May and June 1312 the situation escalated into a devastating war within the walls of the ancient city.20

  • 21 For the election of Henry of Luxemburg and his relation with the pope see Heidemann 2008.
  • 22 Many chroniclers of communal Italy were jurists or notaries. Zabbia 1999; Dale 2007.
  • 23 Triumphans igitur in Mediolanoferrea corona, quam lauream appellabant, cited by Albanese 2016, p. (...)
  • 24 The reward was based on his Ecerinis and his De gestis Henrici VII.
  • 25 Witt 2000, p. 130. Because of the complexity of the Latin, his De gestis Henrici VII would have be (...)
  • 26 Witt 2000, p. 143.
  • 27 M.E. Franke suggested that Mussato’s De gestis Henrici VII should be considered as a literary trag (...)

7The news of the arrival of a new imperial candidate in a Rome widowed by the departure of the popes, incited several Italians to engage in the writing of history and to adopt Henry VII as their central protagonist.21 Three Italian notaries applied a classicizing discourse to Henry’s imperial deeds.22 One of these was Albertino Mussato from Padua (1261-1329). Between 1310 and 1313, he chronicled Henry’s deeds in Italy in his De gestis Henrici VII Cesaris (later entitled Historia augusta). As representative of the commune of Padua, Mussato met Henry VII on several occasions and witnessed his coronation with the iron crown in Milan. The crown that the emperor received on this occasion was newly made and inspired by a laurel crown. In his De gestis Henrici VII Mussato described how Henry (“triumphans”) received the crown, “which they were calling laurel”.23 This event aroused Mussato’s wish to be crowned with laurel himself: this happened in 1315, when the city of Padua crowned him the first poet laureate since antiquity.24 In his study on the origins of humanism, Ronald Witt praises De gestis Henrici VII as the first monument of humanistic imitation in prose.25 Witt assessed the style of Mussato’s Latin, which was based on ancient authors such as Livy, Sallust, Caesar, and Suetonius.26 But his imitation of a classical language also influenced the way Mussato represented the deeds of the Holy Roman Emperor in Rome.27

  • 28 Bortolami 1997, p. 59-60. Witt 2000, p. 164-166. Albanese 2016, p. 161.
  • 29 An exception is Georg Miczka, who pointed out that Ferreti and Mussato “misused ancient terms: Mi (...)
  • 30 The vocabulary was not purely ancient, but could also have been drawn from medieval classicizing t (...)

8Yet another historian influenced by the classical tradition was Ferreto de’ Ferreti (c. 1294-1337) from Vicenza. The coronation of Henry VII in Rome forms the heart of his history of Italy from Frederick II’s death in 1250 until 1318. His Historia rerum in Italia gestorum is generally considered a reliable observation of events.28 The linguistic and ideological implications of his humanist literary imitation have not yet been fully addressed or acknowledged.29 By using a classicizing vocabulary and by paying attention to aspects that corresponded with their conception of antiquity, authors such as Mussato and Ferreti were able to press the contemporary Holy Roman Emperor into a classical mould.30

  • 31 Ferreto de’ Ferreti, p. 45.
  • 32 MacCormack 1981, p. 18, 21. Hack 1999, p. 283-370.
  • 33 Ferreto de’ Ferreti, p. 45.

9Ferreti recalled how Henry VII made his official entry into the Eternal City: the Roman people came to meet Henry outside the walls to escort him into the city in a procession.31 This practice, already customary in the classical adventus ceremony, expressed the consensus of the people and thus legitimized the emperor’s power.32 The procession went from the Porta del Popolo through those parts of the city that were held by the pro-imperial party under the direction of the Colonna family.33 However, other parts of Rome, which included the Vatican, Trastevere and Campo di Fiori were under the control of the hostile coalition consisting primarily of Duke John of Gravina (King Robert of Naples’ younger brother), the Roman Orsini family, and several Tuscan Guelph cities under the leadership of Florence: they had sent troops to Rome to prevent the emperor from reaching Saint Peter’s Basilica.

  • 34 Const. 4:2, nr 777, p. 769-70.
  • 35 Butrinto, p. 59.
  • 36 Albanese 2016, p. 178: “curatissime orazioni…sono da considerarsi documenti di una storiografia uf (...)
  • 37 The term quirites is also used in the inscription on the medieval Casa dei Crescenzi in Rome. Also(...)
  • 38 Mussato 1727, p. 452: Quid frequentes literae, quid nuntii celeres toties expetivere, nisi ut meum (...)
  • 39 This was not completely new. In 1117, Emperor Henry V ascended the Capitol: see Petersohn 2009.

10As early as 10 May 1312, Henry had asked the cardinals whether he could be crowned in a church other than the unreachable Saint Peter’s,34 but they responded that they had no authority to do so.35 Mussato wrote that “Cesar”, trying to find a solution, invited all important Roman noblemen for a meal. The Paduan historian inserted an oratio, which Henry was supposed to have held at that occasion. In reality, the French-speaking Henry needed the mediation of Italian orators in his entourage for his political communication in Italy. Gabriella Albanese has posited that Mussato’s orations should be considered as “documents of an official historiography, ratified by the emperor”.36 Addressing his guests as quirites, the ancient term for Roman citizens, “Cesar” rhetorically asked them, wherefore he came to Italy, if not out of love for the empire, and so that the name of Rome, now almost unknown, could regain its former glory under the banner of imperial majesty.37 He reminded them that he had come to Rome not as a hostile invader, but as the long-awaited and invited sovereign: “What else did the frequent letters ask, what else the swift messengers, if not that I would visit my beloved senate and people of Rome, by whom I would be carried onto the Capitol?”38 Exactly thousand years after Constantine the Great’s refusal to proceed to the mythical hill after his victory over Maxentius (312), an emperor was again expected to be carried to the Capitoline Hill by his beloved senatus populusque romanus.39

  • 40 After the establishment of the Roman commune in 1143, the Romans were politically and ideologicall (...)
  • 41 See Schoenian 1919, 54-64; Petersohn 2010; Strothmann 1998. For other secular approaches to the Ro (...)
  • 42 Godthardt 2011, p. 228.

11Mussato here described the contemporary Holy Roman Emperor in a classicizing way. This representation of imperial presence in Rome departs from the high and late medieval coronation programs (the ordines coronationis), which claim papal supremacy, deny any agency for a Roman senate or for the Roman people, and suppress any possible association of the emperor with the Capitol. The way in which Mussato stressed the relation of the emperor with the Romans shows the appeal of a secular interpretation of imperial power, which had grown in popularity with the revival of Roman law and implied that the original political power lay with the Roman people. Already in the twelfth century, the Roman people had organized themselves and renewed the Senate to challenge the papal hegemony over their city.40 They built a Senatorial Palace on the Capitoline Hill, which became the heart of communal Rome. Conscious of the ancient history of their city, they started to act independently vis-à-vis the emperor and claimed that the emperor should not have to ask the pope for permission to be crowned, but the Roman people.41 This past was revived, when the pope turned his back on the Eternal City. A few months after the election of Pope Clement V in 1305, ambassadors from Rome went to the new pope in France to demand his return to the city: they threatened that, if he refused, they would create an emperor.42

  • 43 Benjamin G. Kohl calls Mussato “Padua’s foremost republican defender”: Kohl 2010.
  • 44 Lee 2015, p. 74.
  • 45 Blythe 2000, p. 42.
  • 46 Mussato 1727, p. 408: Fama tamen per Italiae civitates increbescebat populum Romanum praesertimque (...)
  • 47 Godthardt 2011, p. 236: states that the majority of the Roman people was hostile toward Henry (“me (...)
  • 48 Scholars such as Andreas Rehberg and Anna Modigliani have shown that clientele networks divided th (...)

12Albertino Mussato has traditionally been presented as a defender of communal liberties against imperial and seignorial domination.43 But although he supported a popular government and was raised in a Guelph context, he simultaneously backed the emperor and accepted that the commune of Padua belonged to the Empire. As Alexander Lee already showed, he did not see the empire as a force oppressing communal liberties, but as one that could secure liberty, justice and common good.44 Influential contemporary thinkers, such as Mussato’s friend Marsilius of Padua, associated the Roman empire with exactly these virtues.45 Mussato wrote that, when Henry VII was about to come to Rome, the public opinion in the Italian cities was that the Roman people, and especially the plebs, longed for their king.46 Contrary to what has been supposed, the chronicler thus wrote that the Roman people were not hostile toward Henry.47 Although the populus Romanus may not have been the ideologically unified entity that Mussato and Ferreti sometimes make of it,48 a significant part of the Romans apparently hoped that imperial intervention could restore peace and could turn Rome into a better place.

  • 49 Giovanni da Cermenate, p. 4: qui magnam scribendi causam nobis dedit. See also Franke 1992, p. 79- (...)
  • 50 Witt 2000, p. 169. There are many definitions of humanism: Lee 2018, p. xxii. Patrick Baker charac (...)
  • 51 Giovanni da Cermenate, p. 17: nam nulla pax erit in populo, quem uniformitas voluntatum vinculo iu (...)
  • 52 Giovanni da Cermenate, p. 17. Cicero, De Republica, I.32.49; and later Marsilius of Padua, Defenso (...)

13A third Italian notary who chronicled the deeds of Henry VII, was the Milanese Giovanni da Cermenate (c. 1280-1344). He wrote in the prologue to his Historia, that the arrival of Henry to Italy incited him to pick up his pen.49 Witt considers him a humanist, because he rejected the medieval cursus, plagiarized Livy extensively, and therefore was committed to “reforming current Latin prose”.50 Like Mussato and Ferreti, Cermenate should not be associated with “republican” political ideals. Cermenate defended the necessity of a universal empire in a reflective passage, which shows that the idea of popular sovereignty was firmly connected to the idea of empire. The notary claimed that “there will never be peace among a people, unless the uniformity of wills, bound by the chain of justice, incites the pursuit of common good”.51 He went on that this uniformity of wills (or consent) was only expressed through a uniform movement or gesture, and depended on the unity of the wills of the people. Cermenate explained that the unity had to be created by a righteous leader who distributed laws that formed the “bonds of human society” (vincula societatis humanae).52

  • 53 On the translatio imperii concept see Goez 1958.
  • 54 Unfortunately, we do not know what Cermenate wrote about Henry’s presence in Rome: these pages hav (...)

14He continued that if humans are indeed, as they claim, rational animals, then no one could deny to be subject to the righteous empire of the Romans. Like Marsilius of Padua, Cermenate accepted that a translatio imperii had taken place: the election of the emperor was translated to the Greeks and later to the Germans.53 Cermenate presented Charlemagne as the first “German” emperor: he received the empire because, contrary to the Greeks, he helped the Church when she was oppressed by the Lombards. In Cermenate’s eyes, those who possessed the empire had the task to drive back injustice and tyranny. If they failed to do so, the empire had to be transferred to another people: imperium (rule/empire) existed exactly to prevent injustice and to ensure that people could live under just laws. A good empire thus corrects vices, expels errors and restores peace.54

  • 55 Ferreto de’ Ferreti, p. 50: locus ille quondam Iovi natoque veterum ritu dedicatus, Cesarum sedes (...)

15The chroniclers now had to reconcile this highly ideological reputation of the emperor as peace-bringer with the wartime reality of Rome in the year 1312. Those authors interested in ancient Rome set themselves the additional task to do this with a classicizing vocabulary. Ferreti described how, once in Rome, Cesar heroically fought the disobedient coalition and took over the Capitoline Hill: “that place [the Capitol], where once Jupiter dwelled, consecrated by the rites of the ancients, illustrious seat of the Cesars, was taken easily. Once he had acquired this seat, Cesar renewed, according to ancient custom, the curule rank of his commanders, and distributed privileges, amongst which he restored Louis of Savoy, who indeed had held the title of senator, in this function.”55 Henry’s deeds in the Eternal City are depicted as if a real renovatio imperii took place. Ferreti presented the Capitoline Hill as the legitimate seat of the emperor providing him with juridical power. In the quoted passage, Henry is said to have renewed the curule rank (curules), once used for magistrates in ancient Rome. Like Mussato, who presented the Roman noblemen as quirites, Ferreti covertly tried to replace contemporary terms with equivalents used by ancient authors.

  • 56 Falco 1911.
  • 57 Margue 2009, p. 77.
  • 58 Constitutiones 4:2, nr 789, 787-88: Cessio iurisdictionis in Urbe regi facta. The document of 13 J (...)
  • 59 Heidemann 2008, p. 91.

16The chronicles inform us that “Cesar” restored the authority of senator Louis of Savoy, who had been elected in 1310 but had subsequently been deposed by the anti-imperial Angevin coalition.56 The fact that Henry now controlled the Capitol and was supported by the legitimate senator was of great symbolic importance and recalled the heritage of Antiquity, when the pope had nothing to say in the city. While in Rome, Henry VII held several assemblies with the Roman people on the Capitoline Hill. An image from the well-known Codex Balduini Trevirensis depicts Henry as the lawful administer of justice on the Capitoline Hill (fig. 1).57 The crossed hands of the Romans in the foreground suggest a juridical act. It may represent the transfer of jurisdiction over the city: in a document dated 13 June 1312 the senator granted Henry the right of exercising civil and criminal jurisdiction, in order to increase his power in the city.58 By accepting this, Henry broke his oath to the pope, which implied that Rome was under papal jurisdiction.59 In the manner of the ancient lex regia, power was now transferred from the SPQR to the emperor.

Fig. 1 – Codex Balduini Trevirensis. Rex facit senatorem et iusticias Rome in capitolio sedens. Koblenz, Landeshauptarchiv 1C1, fol. 22a.

Fig. 1 – Codex Balduini Trevirensis. Rex facit senatorem et iusticias Rome in capitolio sedens. Koblenz, Landeshauptarchiv 1C1, fol. 22a.
  • 60 Butrinto, p. 56: Domini cardinales de huiusmodi impedimento dolentes et continue afflicti super st (...)
  • 61 Duprè Theseider 1952, p. 411.
  • 62 Carocci 2001, p. 104.
  • 63 Forcella, vol. 1, p. 122-124, numbers 433, 434, 435, 437, 438; vol. 7, p. 297-298, numbers 596, 59 (...)
  • 64 Mussato 1727, p. 456-457: Hunc conflictum Nicolaus de Bonsignoribus Senensis, qui tunc Capitolii s (...)
  • 65 Const. 4:2, nr 780, p. 778: illico pulsata campana in vos et sequaces vestros in civitate et extra (...)

17This transfer of jurisdiction took place during a dead-end situation: reaching Saint Peter’s was impossible and the cardinals stubbornly refused to crown the emperor in another church because of “the mandate imposed on them” by the pope.60 On 26 May 1312, a decisive battle had taken place, which is traditionally described as the bloodiest that medieval Rome had known.61 Many illustrious men, including the count of Savoy and the bishop of Liège, died in the street battles, which destroyed around 3000 houses.62 The tombs of some illustrious victims can still be viewed in Roman churches today, for instance in the Santa Sabina on the Aventine Hill and the Santa Maria in Aracoeli.63 Mussato insisted that the people of Rome took up their arms to fight for Henry: they were called forth by the voices of town criers and by the tolling bells of the Roman church towers.64 In a letter written to John of Gravina on 31 May 1312, the cardinals explained that representatives of the Roman people had urged them to prevent the destruction of the city. Therefore, the cardinals ordered the duke to liberate the way to Saint Peter’s, so that they could perform the task imposed on them by the pope. If a positive answer was not forthcoming, the vicar, council, and Roman people would toll the bells against him and his followers, and attack them and their possessions.65

  • 66 Görich 2016 (p. 100) agrees that Henry used his contact with the Roman people to put pressure on t (...)
  • 67 Mussato 1727, p. 460: Cardinalibus vero non assentientibus, Caesar Populum Romanum, illum videlice (...)
  • 68 Ferreto de’ Ferreti, p. 55: in vico publico ante Capitolii vestibulum cetus omnes Romani populi co (...)
  • 69 Ferreto de’ Ferreti, p. 57: id volente senatu.
  • 70 Ferreto de’ Ferreti, p. 57-58: ad hoc leges persuasorias applicent, que sacris Iustiniani Digestis (...)

18Despite this support of the Roman people, Henry could not force his way over the Ponte Sant’Angelo leading to Saint Peter’s. In order to convince the cardinals to crown him in another Roman church as soon as possible, Henry used the authority of the Capitoline Hill.66 Mussato wrote that “Cesar called the Roman people – namely those, who lived in the parts of the city under his control – together in a popular assembly to bring forth these difficulties, and to discuss the appropriate thing to do. The plebiscite concluded that the cardinals should give the crown at the urging and request of the res publica”.67 The cardinals were thus supposed to yield to this democratic authority. The res publica, here presented as a kind of active body politic, was mobilized in favour of the emperor-elect. According to Ferreti, more than 10,000 Romans gathered in the area in front of the Senatorial Palace on the Capitoline Hill.68 Ferreti reported that, after this plebiscite, Henry sent twenty-one men to the cardinals to convince them to carry out the will of the “senate”.69 Armed with chapters from Justinian’s Digesta, they aimed to show the cardinals that Roman law was very clear on this matter.70 Both Mussato and Ferreti insisted on the presence of a senatus that supported imperial power: they projected the term on the popular assemblies on the Capitol viewing them as representation of the will of the urban community.

  • 71 Mussato 1727, p. 460: Reluctantibus itaque Cardinalibus Plebs commota est in illos excandescens.
  • 72 Mathias von Neuenburg, p. 89: Differentibus autem cardinalibus, quorum unus obiit […] ex persuasio (...)
  • 73 Butrinto, p. 59: Satis timuimus illos rusticos insanos; et credo quod nisi fuisset dominus rex, qu (...)
  • 74 Butrinto, p. 61: Qui cum non debuisset nec potuisset de jure, facere recusavit.

19Since the cardinals still did not want to yield to the requests of the delegates of the city of Rome, they were held responsible for the continuous destruction of the city. Mussato wrote that the “plebs” burnt with anger against them.71 The German chronicler and lawyer Mathias von Neuenburg wrote that a crowd of Romans invaded “the palace of the king”. When the king asked what they wanted, they answered that they came “to kill those swallowers who devoured the wages of the soldiery”.72 Eyewitness Nicholas of Butrinto wrote that an angry mob invaded the Torre delle Milizie, where at that moment the king and the cardinals were present: “We were quite afraid of these insane peasants; and I believe that if the king, who calmed them as much as he could, had not been there, few clerics would have been secure of their life.”73 Butrinto was a Dominican bishop who accompanied the emperor on his Romzug. He offered his account of the emperor’s deeds to Pope Clement V: his apology presented the emperor as a faithful son of the Church. He therefore held his tongue about the assemblies convoked by the emperor on the Capitoline Hill. He did mention that the Romans asked Henry to create a senator, but, in his account, Henry refused because he did not have the right to do so.74

  • 75 Const. 4:2, nr 794: Requisitiones iteratae cardinalibus factae, p. 792: Pretendens idem dominus re (...)
  • 76 Const. 4:2, nr 794, p. 792: tum quia per retardationem dicte coronationis multe strages, multa hom (...)
  • 77 Once before an emperor had been crowned in St John Lateran: on Sunday 4 June 1133 Pope Innocent II (...)

20The assault on the Torre delle Milizie was a decisive moment: this act of plebeian violence forced the cardinals to perform the coronation in a church other than Saint Peter’s. On 22 June 1312, the very day of the assault, a charter was signed in the Torre delle Milizie that set a deadline for the cardinals. This document, entitled “Requests again made to the cardinals”, states that Henry “displays many reasons of law and fact”, which demonstrate that the cardinals should complete the coronation in another place, and that “both canon and civil law are seen to be in agreement about this”.75 The imperial argument is reinforced by the fact that the impediment caused “a lot of slaughter, homicide, destruction, plundering and other misfortune in the greatest amount possible”.76 The cardinals were given a few more days to await the papal response on the matter, but since no papal messengers arrived, Henry chose the day of Peter and Paul, 29 June, as the day on which he would officially be crowned Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire – not in Saint Peter’s, but in the basilica of Saint John Lateran.77

  • 78 Elze 1960, nr xx, p. 104.
  • 79 Görich 2016, p. 101. Ferreto de’ Ferreti called this bridge pons de la Forma.
  • 80 Const. 4:1, nr 644, p. 611: Consuevit etiam rex, quando descendit de monte Gaudii et venit ad pont (...)
  • 81 Ferreto de’ Ferreti, p. 59: denique ad pontem de la Forma, gradu sollicito, pervenit, ubi, iuxta C (...)
  • 82 Ferreto de’ Ferreti, p. 60.
  • 83 Görich 2016, p. 102.

21The emperor was led to the Lateran in procession and, in conformity with tradition, the emperor swore an oath to the Romans. This oath normally took place at a little bridge at the foot of the Monte Mario before the emperor entered the city.78 Now the emperor-elect swore the oath at a little bridge near the Circus Maximus.79 The papal coronation program provided the following oath: “I, Henry, King about to be Emperor, pledge to the Romans that I shall protect their good traditions. So help me God and these holy gospels.”80 Ferreti described this as follows: “in accordance with the laws of the Cesars and the standard of the people, he promised to defend the res publica and preserve the laws.”81 During the procession, coins were distributed among the audience: this, Ferreti explained, showed that the Cesar was generous towards everybody.82 Knut Görich has calculated that Henry reserved 71 fiorini for this generous gesture toward the Romans: he could thus have distributed 33000 provesini (small silver coins) or 1500 grossi, which he had minted in Milan and which bore his name and an eagle’s image.83

  • 84 Margue 2009, p. 79; in the illustrated chronicle of Villani, Henry is crowned by three men as well (...)
  • 85 As described in the ordo: Const. 4:1, nr 644, p. 610.
  • 86 Const. 4:1, nr 644, p. 611: Scriniarii vero Urbis serecis capis induti ante pectorale consistentes (...)
  • 87 Mussato 1727, p. 462: multis cleri, populique applausibus inclyto Imperatori Henrico semper August (...)
  • 88 Aldrete 1999, p. 101-108, 112, 128.

22Once in St John’s, three cardinals performed the coronation. Although the location had altered, they tried to follow the coronation instructions closely. They first anointed Henry, and then put the mitre and the imperial crown on his head, as is visible in the Codex Balduini Trevirensis.84 Subsequently, they handed the sceptre, the golden orb and the sword over to him.85 In the ordo coronationis, the subdeacons and imperial officials then pronounced the imperial praises (laudes).86 In Mussato’s rendering, the people participated in the acclamatio: they applauded and chanted together with the clergy “To the illustrious Emperor Henry always Augustus, life and victory.”87 Besides applauding, wishing the Emperor good health and victory, and shouting imperial titles were also standard ways of expressing plebeian approval in ancient Roman ceremonies, such as the adventus and the accession.88

  • 89 Mussato 1727, p. 462-463: in Aventinum ad parata convivia, comessationesque cum Nobilibus et Plebe (...)
  • 90 Butrinto, p. 60: secundum quod in ordinario scribitur et in litteris vestris continetur.
  • 91 Mussato 1727, p. 462: protestantibus cardinalibus, scilicet legato, et Luca de Flisco non sua spon (...)
  • 92 Ferreto de’ Ferreti, p. 64: Sed hec Urbs potissiumum illi velut tenax anchora fixa est, ut, victis (...)
  • 93 Ferreto de’ Ferreti, p. 65: si Urbem urbium in quiete adiciat, que Cesarum sedes et orbis regina m (...)

23After Henry’s coronation in Saint John’s, a banquet was prepared for the newly crowned emperor in the Santa Sabina on the Aventine Hill. Mussato wrote that he was carried to the Aventine Hill to feast “with the nobles and the plebs”.89 Whereas Ferreti and Butrinto emphasized that the imperial coronation itself took place in accordance with the prescriptions of the papal ordo coronationis,90 Mussato commented that two of the cardinals did not crown Henry voluntarily, but that they were forced by the plebs and the king himself.91 Ferreti recounted that after the coronation, Henry VII assembled the people on the Capitoline Hill, where Nicholas of Bonsignore addressed the people in the emperor’s name. Ferreti inserted a long oratio, which announced the departure of the emperor, but simultaneously stressed his inextricable attachment to Rome: “But this City is fastened to him like a persistent, very strong anchor, so that, once the enemies have been defeated and chased away, she may acquire her peaceful liberty.”92 The spokesman assured the people that Henry would leave the city only to restore imperial peace in Italy. Then, he would turn back to Rome, the rightful seat of the Cesars.93 Again, the emperor is presented as the defender of peace and Roman liberty.

  • 94 Mussato 1727, p. 508: Denuo quoque compertum est dispositis ad huius plebisque libitum rebus preci (...)
  • 95 Arlotti remained in power until February 1313, see Holstein 2016, p. 87-93.

24In reality, when Henry and his imperial troops had left, the baronial class took control in Rome. However, as Mussato related in his De gestis Henrici VII, the Roman people revolted and overthrew the baronial government. They chose Giacomo di Giovanni Arlotti as their “captain of the people”. Mussato commented: “And again it was shown, since the affairs were disposed at this people’s will and especially since the more powerful were dispersed, that all these things were prepared for Cesar, and that he must be called to the City to be carried to the Capitol in triumph, to recognize the leadership from the people alone.”94 A mere “republican” solution for Rome was thus inconceivable: the popular revolt went together with a new call on the emperor to return to the Capitol. Henry only had to recognize that his power came from the people (ab sola plebe), not from the pope or his delegates. But fate took another turn, and hopes for the emperor faded, so Mussato concluded the episode tragically.95

  • 96 Compagni, p. 149: “lo imperadore con le sue forze vi farà prendere e rubare per mare e per terra.” (...)
  • 97 Collard 2001; Pontari 2016a and 2016b; Mallegni 2016.

25Dino Compagni, like Dante a White Guelph, chronicled the imperial coronation exactly in 1312 and inserted a genuine invective against the citizens of Florence for their betrayal of the emperor. While Henry VII was preparing his campaign in order to take revenge on the city that hindered his coronation, Compagni commented that the righteous ruler was now coming to punish the Florentines.96 But Henry VII died in 1313: the belief that he was poisoned by his Dominican confessor was persistent. Innumerable poems and chronicles show the immense impact that this alleged crime against the alto Arrigo aroused in late medieval Europe.97

  • 98 Bowsky 1960.
  • 99 Giovanni Villani, II, liber X.1, p. 211.
  • 100 See the discussion in Pertile 1997, p. 1.
  • 101 Giovanni Villani, II, liber X.136, p. 336.
  • 102 Giovanni Villani, II, liber X.53, p. 257-258.
  • 103 Petrarch, X, 1, p. 246.

26In the still authoritative account of William Bowsky, Henry’s failure in Italy was caused by his incapacity to recognize the autonomy of the Italian city-states.98 This interpretation turned Henry and the remaining emperors who would be crowned in Rome into antimodern and anachronistic figures. The sources, however, show that the most prominent intellectuals of the early Trecento did not at all reject the empire. Although Giovanni Villani belonged to the “anti-imperial” party of Black Guelphs, the Florentine chronicler asserted that “if Henry had lived longer, he would have done the greatest things.”99 Villani testified that Dante’s political letters in favour of the empire, instead of being mere “literary exercises” as traditional scholarship wants,100 were highly recommended by “wise connoisseurs:”101 many people were convinced that Henry would have overcome the resistance of King Robert and would have recovered the provinces that were taken from him.102 Petrarch would later repeat this message in his letter to Charles IV: if Henry had not died so young, the Italians would now live freely and happily.103 The orationes that Ferreti and Mussato inserted into their histories were not only wild literary fantasies, but seem to have corresponded with more widespread public expectations. The desire to revive an empire governed from Rome had become stronger than before, now the pope had forsaken Italy.

Louis IV

  • 104 The classical biography is Thomas 1993.

27After the death of Henry VII, fourteenth-century Italian intellectuals continued to express the belief that the emperor could function as a defender of peace in turbulent Italy. Among them, Marsilius of Padua figures most prominently. This political thinker became the adviser of the next emperor to be crowned in Rome: Louis the Bavarian.104 Louis was crowned emperor against the will of the pope by representatives of the Roman people. As in 1312, Robert of Anjou tried to occupy Rome before the arrival of the emperor, but this time he did not succeed.

  • 105 Giovanni Villani, II, liber XI.20, p. 543: “Romani si levarono a romore e feciono popolo perché no (...)
  • 106 Anonimo, p. 14: “caporioni.”
  • 107 Giovanni Villani, II, liber XI.22, p. 546-547.
  • 108 Anonimo, p. 19.
  • 109 Giovanni Villani, II, liber XI.55, p. 582.

28In 1327, a popular revolution against the baronial class had brought Sciarra Colonna to power as the new capitano del popolo.105 Anonimo Romano wrote in his chronicle that Sciarra appointed caporioni as representatives of the Roman districts and often assembled the people on the Capitol for a parlamento: this was the best way to keep the people behind him.106 With Sciarra as its leader, Rome withstood an attack of the anti-imperial coalition.107 Anonimo Romano described the battle in detail and presented Sciarra as one of the most able military strategists of his time. After his victory, he returned to the Capitol “in great triumph”.108 Villani explained that since the pope refused to return, the Romans decided to offer their city to the Bavarian emperor-elect. According to the chronicler, Sciarra Colonna, Jacopo Savelli and Tibaldo di Santo Stazio had secretly sent letters to Louis the Bavarian to invite him to Rome.109

  • 110 Mussato 2015, p. 233.
  • 111 Mussato 2015, p. 257: ut Roma caput mundi apicis sui gloriam non amittat.
  • 112 Mussato 2015, p. 258: Populus Romanus ut Deus ab excelsis veniente gavisus illum magnis alacritati (...)
  • 113 Vita Ludovici quarti, p. 156-157.
  • 114 Vita Ludovici quarti, p. 157: advenisti desiderabilis, quem expectabamus pro domino, quia tu factu (...)
  • 115 For the eschatological role of the Roman empire in medieval historiography see for instance Lettin (...)

29The new imperial arrival in Italy incited Albertino Mussato to take up his historical work. His friend Marsilius of Padua, who was present in Rome as Louis’s counsellor, was his main source.110 He wrote that, by receiving the excommunicated Louis as her sovereign, Rome wanted to prevent losing the glory and honour of caput mundi.111 The Paduan poet laureate stressed that the Roman people received Louis “with the greatest enthusiasm and applauses of the town criers – happy as if God was descending from heaven”.112 In a similar vein, the Vita Ludovici Quarti Imperatoris insists that the Romans had decorated the streets, “just as was done for the Lord coming to Jerusalem.”113 The text also includes the lines that were sung to Louis: “You have come as the one wished for, whom we were expecting as our Lord, because you are the hope of the forsaken ones and the great consolation for those tormented.”114 The Romans, abandoned by the curia, probably considered this hymn as very suitable for the reception of their emperor. It expresses the same sentiment as Dante’s and Petrarch’s imperial letters, which portray the emperor as the saviour of tormented Italy. It shows that secular concepts of the emperor as defender of peace and law corresponded perfectly with the traditional eschatological perspective: the belief that the Roman emperor had a pivotal role within salvation history formed an organic part of the imperial idea of Rome and had been elaborated by Christian thinkers since late antiquity.115

  • 116 Mussato 2015, p. 259: Sicque Lodoici Romanorum regis nomen ac titulum vociferante populo (illum vi (...)
  • 117 See note 55. The edition reads cetus, cf. coetus.

30Mussato and the author of the Vita Ludovici Quarti Imperatoris did not distinguish between Louis’ adventus and the coronation festivities. In Mussato’s account, Louis entered the city and went straight to the Capitoline Hill. Villani, however, wrote that he first went to a palace near Saint Peter’s, where he remained for four days. Thereafter he stayed near Santa Maria Maggiore. The fact that Mussato left this information out of his account, and instead suggested that Louis took his seat on the Capitoline Hill immediately, shows his will to present the contemporary imperial presence in Rome in the mould of a classical triumph. He wrote: “And so, with the people shouting the name and title of Louis, king of the Romans (that he may live and reign) he and his queen together took up position on the Capitoline Hill. To the plebs and the people of Rome he granted the power to take council in things concerning the empire and to execute whatever pertained to the condition of the res publica.”116 Like in his account on Henry VII, Mussato emphasized the interaction between the emperor and the Roman people on the Capitoline Hill, the stronghold of the Roman commune. In the quoted passage, Mussato suggested that the emperor wanted his subjects to participate in the imperial government as active citizens: not only the higher classes, but also the plebs was supposed to take a role. The emphasis on broad popular participation was also present in Ferreti, who wrote that Henry ordered all the Roman people (cetus omnes Romani populi: literally “all assemblages of the Roman people”) to gather on the Capitol.117

  • 118 Giovanni Villani, II, liber XI.55, p. 583: “com’egli avea intenzione di mantenergli e innalzargli, (...)
  • 119 Ibidem: “E nel detto parlamento s’ordinò la sua coronazione la domenica vegnente”. Godthardt state (...)
  • 120 Godthardt 2011, p. 240-253. Godthardt, after Friedensburg, translated it as “Kaiserordo”, Schwarz (...)
  • 121 Giovanni Villani, II, liber XI.56, p. 585: “E non trovando niuno difetto, fuori la benedizione e c (...)

31The contact between people and sovereign also attracted the attention of Villani. The Florentine chronicler stressed the great enthusiasm of the Roman people for Louis as well. He wrote that Louis convoked a large parliament on the Capitol, where the “whole people of Rome” was present. The Augustinian friar Gerardo Orlandini held a speech in Louis’ name. Whereas Mussato wrote that, on the Capitol, Louis granted power to the people, Villani wrote that the new emperor promised to “maintain them, and lift them up and to put the people of Rome in every good state”.118 In other words, the emperor promised to restore the common good for the people. The Romans adored that and responded with “Viva il nostro signore e re de’ Romani”. The assembly fixed the date for the coronation on the next Sunday.119 Villani emphasized that on the day of the coronation, a jurist carried an imperial ordo (l’ordine dello ’mperio) in the procession to Saint Peter’s. What ordo was used, remains unclear.120 According to Villani, it was carried out without defect, only the papal blessing and confirmation were lacking.121

  • 122 Godthardt 2011, p. 230-33, 270, 310: “Daher können auch die bei der Kaiserkrönung Ludwigs des Baye (...)
  • 123 For papalist views see Wilks 1963, p. 254.
  • 124 Giovanni Villani, II, liber XI.56, p. 584: “Come Lodovico di Baviera si fece coronare per lo popol (...)
  • 125 Mathias von Neuenburg, p. 368.
  • 126 Gesta Baldewini, liber III.5, 245: non ab ecclesia, sed a senatu fuerat in imperatorem coronatus.
  • 127 Const. 6.1, nr 383, p. 286: Castruccii encyclical in die coronationis scripta, The ritum refers to (...)
  • 128 Whereas, for instance, Pauler presents Sciarra Colonna as crowner, Schwarz suggests that the excom (...)
  • 129 The most important chroniclers, among whom Villani, state that a number of lay Romans crowned the (...)
  • 130 Giovanni Villani, II, liber XI.56, p. 586.
  • 131 It is another aspect that is reminiscent of a classical Roman triumph: the ancients used to hold a (...)

32Frank Godthardt has stated in his study on Louis’ Romzug that scholars have often exaggerated the role of the Roman people during the coronation of 1328. According to him, Louis was the main actor and the Romans only had a passive and reactive role: they did not make him emperor.122 This, however, contrasts with the interpretation of contemporary chroniclers, who considered the consent of the Roman people as an ideological alternative to the papal coronation in Rome.123 Villani entitled the chapter on Louis’ coronation: “how Louis was crowned by the Roman people.”124 The chronicler Mathias von Neuenburg added that the Romans considered it their task to crown the emperor, since the pope refused to come back to the city.125 According to the author of the Gesta Baldewini, the “senate” crowned Louis emperor.126 In a circular letter dated on coronation day (17 January 1328), Castruccio Castracani, Louis’ main ally in Italy, wrote that Louis was crowned “by the Roman people, according to the ancient rite”.127 The sources do not agree who actually placed the crown on Louis’ head (and neither do modern historians).128 Godthardt’s detailed analysis of both historiographical texts and papal documents suggests that three excommunicated bishops were responsible for the liturgy. One of these, Giacomo of Castello, anointed the emperor. Four representatives of the Roman people, among whom Manfredi di Vico and Sciarra Colonna, were responsible for the coronation.129 After his coronation in Saint Peter’s, Louis went in procession to the Capitol. He held his banquet there and stayed overnight.130 This was a conscious rupture with tradition as well: the coronation banquet had never been held on that hill associated with the Roman commune.131

  • 132 On Marsilius of Padua’s influence on Louis IV see Godthardt 2011.
  • 133 Marsilius of Padua 2005, II.26.4, p. 451.
  • 134 Marsilius of Padua 1979, p. 430: ad solemnitatem, non quidem propter necessitatem aliquam. It rema (...)
  • 135 Kurze 1892, p. 112: a cuncto Romanorum populo adclamatum [also acclamatum] est. Marsilius of Padua (...)
  • 136 This leads Godthardt to write: “Es ist nicht erkennbar, dass Marsilius dem römischen Volk eine wei (...)
  • 137 Marsilius of Padua 1979, p. 420: imperialium laudum acclamationem per populum. The senators leadin (...)

33The contemporary interpretation of the imperial coronation of 1328 coincided with the newly elaborated political theory of Marsilius of Padua, who was present in Rome as Louis’ councillor.132 In his Defensor pacis of 1324, Marsilius completely nullified the papal claims on plenitude of power. He wrote that some Roman emperors after Constantine “caused that a royal diadem be placed upon them by the Roman pontiffs, to mark the solemnity and as a sign of their enthronement”. However, this did not at all mean that the “Roman bishop” could confer authority on the emperor, or that his imperial dignity “depend[ed] upon the Roman bishop’s will”.133 In his treatise De translatione imperii, Marsilius of Padua repeated the message: the fact that popes had become accustomed to crown emperors during a sacred ceremony, increased the solemnity but was not at all necessary.134 The pope did not decide upon the bestowal of imperial power. Perhaps citing directly from the Annales regni Francorum, he reminded his audience that the Roman people had acclaimed Charlemagne emperor during the first imperial coronation in Rome in the year 800.135 Marsilius recognized that only after the Roman coronation, Charlemagne was called emperor. He did not explicitly discuss whose authority created the imperial dignity during the ceremony if it was not the pope’s,136 but his treatises highlight the importance of an “acclamatio of imperial praises” pronounced by the Roman people.137

  • 138 Giovanni Villani, liber XI.56, p. 586: “non troverrai per nulla cronica antica o novella che nullo (...)

34Contemporary reactions show the revolutionary impact of the 1328 events in Rome. Many chroniclers did not approve of the events and did not recognize Louis as emperor. In Villani’s view, papal approval was essential. He concluded that Louis had no respect for the Church: it was outrageous that a Christian emperor was not crowned by the pope or his legate. He had never read anything similar – not in “new” nor in “old” chronicles.138 Whereas Villani had called Henry VII lo ’mperadore, he referred to Louis as il Bavaro. Neither did Mussato dare to call Louis emperor. Nevertheless, he saw many reasons to praise Louis the Bavarian and to consider him a worthy cesar:

  • 139 Mussato 2015, p. 285-286: ipsum strenuo animo Alpes transisse, Mediolani coronam ferream suscepiss (...)

He crossed the Alps with a vigorous mind and accepted the iron crown in Milan. From there he traversed Tuscia and moved rapidly to Rome. He sat on the Capitol and created a senator, consuls, decurions and tribunes, as a Roman emperor is accustomed to do. He has been lauded and approved by an assembly of the Roman people. He tackled every problem ambitiously. These things pertain to a man of courage and of extraordinary virtue. For these things, both in name and deed, he is worthy to be called and named Cesar and king of the Romans.139

  • 140 Mussato may also have been inspired by high medieval texts such as Benzo of Alba, p. 512: creavit (...)

35In this passage, Mussato presented Louis as a classical emperor. Not actual facts but his will to imitate the ancients made him claim that Louis created “consuls, decurions and tribunes”.140 His classicizing ambition thus conditioned the way he selected and presented the imperial deeds. Modern historians, who remain puzzled at the unlikely creation of decurions or tribunes by Louis, should take this into account when dealing with such “humanist” accounts. By imposing an ancient vocabulary, which was considered superior, humanist historians such as Mussato at times hypercorrected and even transformed the events they described.

  • 141 Schoenian 1919, p. 56. Other examples in Cavino 1991; Duprè Theseider 1942, p. 255-269.
  • 142 Godthardt 2011, p. 129.
  • 143 Godthardt 2011, p. 133.
  • 144 Hohensee 2009.

36Moreover, Mussato did not mention the coronation in Saint Peter’s, but explicitly stated that Louis was approved by an assembly of the Roman people. We must remember that the question whether the Roman people could revoke the imperium, which they had once transferred to the emperor, greatly occupied jurists in the late Middle Ages. The influential Azo of Bologna (fl. 1190-1220) maintained that the people retained the power, and thus argued for popular sovereignty.141 Likewise, Marsilius of Padua considered the populus romanus as a sovereign political community. According to him, the populus romanus still had the authority to give law. Although they had given this authority to their princeps (the emperor), they could ask it back.142 Marsilius, in the emperor’s service, nowhere explained who exactly constituted the populus romanus. Godthardt suggests that the term did not refer to the people in Rome, but applied more broadly to the citizens of the empire (universitas civium), who were represented by the prince-electors.143 This view was defended by Lupold von Bebenburg in his De iuribus regni et imperii dedicated to Archbishop Balduin of Trier (the brother of Henry VII). In this text, the jurist created the legal fundament for the Golden Bull.144 Since the election by the prince-electors was considered constitutional, the link with the city of Rome became less important.

  • 145 Mussato 2015, p. 286-287.
  • 146 For the creation of antipope Nicolaus V and the second coronation by this pope on 22 May see: Godt (...)
  • 147 Mussato 2015, p. 288: nil ipsius merite dignitati auctoritatique detrahere intendentes, sed alioru (...)
  • 148 Wilks 1963, p. 247.
  • 149 Scales 2012, p. 258.

37In the sources on the imperial coronations, however, the term populus romanus clearly refers to the actual people of Rome. Those Romans who gathered in the parliaments on the Capitoline Hill were referred to as – and thus represented – the populus romanus and their decisions had constitutive force. Following the theory of popular sovereignty, the consent of the Romans would have been enough to make Louis IV emperor. Mussato, however, explained that some called Louis not emperor but barbarian, because he was damned by the pope.145 Mussato confessed that he pertained to the group that did not consider Louis emperor, especially because of the great disgrace that fell upon Louis when he created an antipope.146 Nevertheless, he did call him a worthy “cesar” and did not wish to wipe out Louis’ merits or dignity: in his eyes, posterity should pass the true and final judgment.147 Mussato was thus stuck between his fascination for imperial Rome and his reverence for the traditional ecclesiastical authorities. This dichotomy is characteristic for lay authors writing about papal and imperial jurisdiction in this period. They were, in Wilks words, in the middle of “a clash between two ideological conceptions of society”.148 To comprehend Mussato’s and Villani’s reverence for the Church, we must also recall that the papal propaganda penetrated far beyond the imperial one. The Church’s extensive administrative and disciplinary institutions influenced the daily life of these authors to a much greater extent than any imperial structure.149 The imperium, nevertheless, continued to embody the most significant political ideal.

  • 150 Giovanni Villani, VII, p. 1: considers himself as part of the populari.
  • 151 Mussato 2015, p. 259-260: Plebs vero ac populus, ut eorum moris semper est novis gaudere rebus, no (...)
  • 152 Giovanni Villani, p. 605: “De la detta sentenzia i savi uomini di Roma molto si turbarono; l’altro (...)

38Although Villani and Mussato are traditionally considered supporters of popular governments,150 they both objected to the uncontrolled power of the people. They did not like the “populist” happenings in Rome, where Louis, supported by a popular crowd, had deposed the pope. Mussato considered the people as reckless: “The plebs, now, and the people, whose habit it is to love new events, not only glorified Louis’ name, but also hated pope John. They started to accuse him publicly and deny he was the true pope.”151 Not satisfied with the creation of an emperor, the Roman people wanted to make a pope as well. Villani wrote that the “wise Romans” had great doubts about this act, but that the “simple people” loved it.152 The chroniclers belonged to the learned part of the popolo. By suggesting that the simple people or plebs were governed by emotions instead of rational thinking or laws, they distanced themselves from the lower classes.

  • 153 Suckale 1993, p. 31, ill. 14; Pietrangeli 1960. More details on the bull and references in Schwarz (...)
  • 154 More on Louis’ perspective in Godthardt 2011, p. 285-301.
  • 155 Blythe 2000, p. 51.
  • 156 As Scales wrote “Rome as idea still mattered”: Scales 2012, p. 257. On the fifteenth century, see (...)

39The coronation of Louis IV challenged papal authority in the ideological centre of the Christian world and the impact of its claims on contemporary thinkers should not be underestimated. Visual remains highlight the novelty of the event: Louis’ golden bull, made in Italy in the year of his coronation, prominently and centrally depicts not Saint Peter’s, but the senatorial palace on the Capitoline Hill, the heart of communal Rome (fig. 2).153 The imperial seal, used in Italy at least 25 times, thus referred to the communal approval of Louis’ emperorship. Never before did a Holy Roman Emperor use the Roman senatorial palace in his visual propaganda. Nevertheless, once back in the German lands, Louis IV would not base his imperial dignity on the Roman people. The imperial coronation without the pope was thus legitimized in diverging ways on either side of the Alps. The Bavarian claimed in his bull Licet iuris (1338) that his “imperial dignity and power” derived from God alone: Imperialis dignitas et potestas est immediate a solo Deo.154 The bull simultaneously established the empire’s legitimacy in a secular way by regulating the constitutive role of the prince-electors: they did no longer elect a rex Romanorum, who would become imperator Romanorum only after a Roman coronation, but they chose the emperor directly.155 This imperial view, elaborated in Charles IV’s Golden Bull of 1356, in fact made a Romzug redundant. However, Italian thinkers continued to suggest Roman solutions for the emperor and the many and enthusiastic accounts of the imperial coronations in Rome that were written in the fourteenth and fifteenth century show that it would take a long time before the appeal of the imperial idea of Rome would give way.156

Fig. 2 – Imperial seal of Louis the Bavarian with the Senatorial Palace on the Capitoline Hill depicted centrally, 25 October 1328. Münzkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, 18239302. Photo by Lutz-Jürgen Lübke (Lübke und Wiedemann).

Fig. 2 – Imperial seal of Louis the Bavarian with the Senatorial Palace on the Capitoline Hill depicted centrally, 25 October 1328. Münzkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, 18239302. Photo by Lutz-Jürgen Lübke (Lübke und Wiedemann).

Charles IV

  • 157 For the image of Charles IV in historiography more generally see Frey 1978. Classical works on Cha (...)
  • 158 On Charles IV and Petrarch see Bayley 1942; Blanc 1986; Six letters were written between 1351 and (...)
  • 159 William of Ockham also considered the empire as secular in origin: first the community conferred j (...)
  • 160 Crevatin 2012, p. 168.
  • 161 Petrarch, X.1, p. 240. Špička 2010, p. 535. Other letters XIX.4, 336-41, 12, 370.

40This can be illustrated with some letters written to the next emperor to be crowned in Rome: Charles IV.157 Following the example of his famous compatriot Dante, who had addressed Charles’ grandfather Henry VII, Francesco Petrarch wrote several letters to the emperor-elect of his day, inciting him to re-establish the empire in Rome.158 Like his contemporaries, the reputed father of humanism believed that the contemporary empire, although in decline, was a continuation of the imperium of Augustus and Constantine. He considered the emperor as the designated defender of peace. In his eyes, the empire was a secular entity, but simultaneously supported by God.159 Although he accepted that a translatio imperii had taken place, Rome remained the centre of the empire:160 the senate and people of Rome had given the emperor the right to govern the empire.161

  • 162 Petrarch, X.1, p. 247: reformandeque reipublice propositum.
  • 163 Petrarch, XVIII.1, p. 224-225; 227: ut reipublice deformitates aboleas.
  • 164 Cited in Sistrunk 1991, p. 117: sicut maritus defensor uxoris […] ita et imperator rei publicae. T (...)

41In his first exhortative letter to Charles IV, Petrarch included a fictional oratio, which Henry VII allegedly addressed to his grandson Charles from heaven. The deceased emperor ordered his successor to complete his original plan to restore the res publica – a plan which he himself, prevented by death, had not been able to carry out.162 A third letter stressed that only the emperor could restore Rome’s liberty: the emperor was born to put an end to the degradation of the res publica.163 The jurist Cino da Pistoia (d. 1337) had expressed the same idea, by writing that “in the way the husband is the defender of the wife… the emperor [is the defender] of the res publica”.164

  • 165 Petrarch, XIX.1 (Milan, October or November 1354), p. 318-321.
  • 166 Const. 8, nr 9-13, p. 11-27 and nr 91, p. 117-119; Johannis Porta de Annoniaco. Charles IV returne (...)
  • 167 For a more extensive account on Charles in Rome see Bauch 2015, p. 136-149.
  • 168 For the nickname rex clericorum, see Frey 1978, p. 16; Bauch 2015, p. 148, 436. Schlotheuber 2016.
  • 169 A jurist who defended the imperial deeds of Henry VII, stated the same: see Heidemann 2008, p. 209
  • 170 Petrarch, XIX.12, p. 375: Boemie rex solius.

42When Charles finally announced his arrival in Italy, Petrarch sent him a joyful letter.165 But disappointment followed soon after his coronation. Whereas Henry and Louis had remained in Rome for several months, Charles had to promise the absent pope – who had learnt from the 1312 and 1328 events – that he would remain in Rome for one day only.166 Although he visited the churches of Rome incognito before coronation day,167 the so-called rex clericorum displayed himself a faithful son of the Church during his imperial coronation.168 Unlike Henry and Louis, Charles did not interact with the Roman people, and did not assemble them on the Capitoline Hill. Instead of re-establishing the empire in Rome, Charles quickly returned to his homeland. Petrarch then wrote Charles a letter full of reproaches. In the poet’s eyes, the pope had no right to restrict the emperor’s stay in his own city.169 By fleeing Italy, Charles was no longer emperor of the Romans, but only king of Bohemia.170

  • 171 Matteo Villani, I, p. 607: “Lo ’mperadore nome sormonta li altri per somma magnificenza, al qual s (...)
  • 172 Matteo Villani, I, p. 587, 608.

43The Florentine Matteo Villani, continuing the work of his deceased brother Giovanni, chronicled Charles IV’s coronation in Rome. Reflecting on contemporary politics, he emphasized that the emperor’s name outshone all others and that all nations of the universe were used to obey him. In his days, however, the people were unfaithful and did not recognize the imperial rights.171 Interpreting the empire as a secular institution, he repeated the legal argument that the Roman people had given the emperor the power to reign. The authority of Rome created the emperor. The Church, however, had given the right to elect the emperor to the German prince-electors without the consent of the Romans. The Florentine chronicler thus contested the rights of the prince-electors, who had created a foreign and German empire. In his eyes, this had probably caused the decline of the empire.172 Whereas his brother Giovanni had considered Louis’ coronation as illegitimate, because papal confirmation was lacking, now Matteo seemed to suggest that the current coronation procedure did not recognize the rights of the Roman (or better, Italian) people. The ideological associations with empire and emperor were thus of such nature, that even within one Guelph Florentine family there was no agreement about whose authority created the emperor. Never did the expectations correspond with fourteenth-century reality.

  • 173 Beccari, Niccolò, in DBI, vol. 7, 1970, p. 437-440: Beccari was an official at the court of Charle (...)
  • 174 Folz 1962.
  • 175 Niccolò Beccari, p. 266: he refers to the lex regia.
  • 176 Ibidem, p. 278: Ita te augustissima in maiestate niveo et ornatissimo currui triumphali invectum p (...)
  • 177 Ibidem, p. 280: via recta ad Capitolium […] ubi et in quo caput et sedes est Imperii eritque inper (...)
  • 178 Ibidem, 281: vetusto more […] publice perlegetur […] ORPR - ob rem publicam restitutam.
  • 179 Although these four words are not abbreviated on the arch of Septimius Severus, Beccari probably w (...)

44Back in Bohemia, Charles IV would regulate the election of the King of the Romans by the prince-electors in his Golden Bull of 1356. This detached the empire from the papacy: Niccolò Beccari liked that aspect of the bull.173 Following in the footsteps of his friend Petrarch, this poet from Ferrara wrote a letter to Charles IV in 1377, more than two decades after his Roman coronation.174 He had a vision of a universal empire that was not subject to the pope, but was based on a mandate of the Roman people.175 Beccari urged Charles to go back to Rome and to restore the empire in Italy. He depicted the hoped-for return as a triumphal procession all’antica: after liberating Italy from anti-imperial forces and eliminating papal claims on worldly power, Charles IV would be brought straight to the Capitoline Hill as a victorious military leader in a triumphal chariot, where the people would stand ready to salute him with the words Chere Cesar Anichos (Hail Cesar the Unconquerable!).176 In this way, the accursed deed of Constantine, namely his donation to the pope, would be cancelled. On the Capitoline Hill, “where the head and seat of the Empire is and for ever will be”, the senate and the magistrates of the res publica would stand ready to hear him pronounce the three words “Veni, vidi, vici”, which Cesar, the father of empire, once uttered.177 Finally, Beccari concluded his letter with the prediction that after Charles’ death, a monumental inscription would be made for him in porphyry, which would be read publicly and would remember his memorable deeds forever, abbreviated “according to ancient custom” in four gilded capital letters ORPR, “for having restored the res publica”.178 These last words, ob rem publicam restitutam, can still be read on the triumphal arch of Septimius Severus on the Roman forum.179 Niccolò Beccari signed the letter as precursor imperialis, a prophet of a renewed empire.

Conclusion

45The Holy Roman Emperors in fourteenth-century Italy did not simply enter into an insurmountable “conflict of Empire and city-state”. Many Italians perceived the transalpine rulers as carriers of justice and order. Instead of criticizing the idea of a universal empire, fourteenth-century humanists reinforced the imperial myth by applying a classical language to discuss the contemporary Holy Roman Emperors. The Holy Roman Emperor was considered the best guarantor and defender of the res publica under the condition that he would reign with the consent of the people. This popular consent legitimized the emperor. In Cermenate’s history we read that this consent, or “uniformity of wills” could be expressed by a “uniform gesture or movement”. Therefore, the assemblies of the Romans organized by Henry VII and Louis IV on the Capitoline Hill made an impression on contemporaries: this interaction showed that the imperator Romanorum reigned with the consent of his people, the Romans.

  • 180 In antiquity, res publica was sometimes used in a personified way as well, to signify something li (...)

46The Paduan pre-humanist Mussato used the expression res publica twice in connection with an assembly of the Roman people on the Capitoline Hill, which ideologically represented the will of the people, and twice these meetings were convoked and presided by the emperor. The affairs of the people and the affairs of the emperor were thus in harmony. The first time, Mussato used the expression to refer to a decision made by the Roman popular assembly. He presented it as a decision for the common good: the res publica requested the cardinals to crown Henry VII in the Lateran. In this case, the res publica was not a passive and abstract concept, but an active body consisting of the assembled Roman citizens.180 The second time, Mussato used the words in a passive way: Louis IV, in an assembly with the people on the Capitoline Hill, granted the people the power to effectuate the things that pertain to the status rei publice.

  • 181 Suerbaum 1961, p. 228-229.
  • 182 In their letters, however, the expression res publica referred not just to the Roman commune, but (...)

47As we have seen, Ferreto de’ Ferreti also employed the concept when describing the deeds of Henry VII in Rome, namely in connection with the oath Henry VII pledged to the Romans: Henry promised them that he would defend the res publica and would respect the laws. In this passage, the term refers to the common good of Rome. Following ancient and early medieval authors, the res publica is conceived as a condition in which law prevails.181 The idea of justice was thus connected both to res publica and to imperium. As Giovanni da Cermenate wrote, the goal of imperium was to secure justice. In line with this, Petrarch and Beccari addressed Emperor Charles IV as the one who was supposed to restore a damaged res publica.182 Charles IV, in other words, had to set public affairs in order and had to bring back justice.

48The increasing knowledge about ancient Roman history, which Italian authors in the fourteenth century possessed, influenced their perception of the imperial presence in Rome. Marsilius of Padua recalled that papal coronation of an emperor was a solemnity that was not at all necessary. This awareness seems to be visible in the accounts of Mussato and Ferreti regarding the imperial coronation of Henry VII in 1312. The authors repeatedly emphasized the crucial relation between the emperor and the Roman people or “senate”. With the pope being at a far distance, the sources on the imperial coronations of 1312 and 1328 attribute a central role to the Roman people. An alternative interpretation of imperial power could thus grow in popularity, in which not the pope, but the Roman people made the emperor. The acclamatio of the people hereby constituted a central aspect. Although an author such as Mussato wrote that the Roman people asked Henry VII to recognize his imperial authority as gained “from the people alone”, he was not an unconditional supporter of popular initiatives: he also criticized the plebs and was afraid to call the excommunicated Louis “emperor”.

49Mussato’s and Ferreti’s will to imitate the ancients conditioned and, to some extent, distorted the way in which they represented the presence of the Holy Roman Emperors in Rome. At times, they inventively projected terms associated with ancient emperors on the fourteenth-century reality that surrounded them. By using a classicizing discourse, they inevitably focused on the triumphal aspects of the imperial coronations. The Capitoline Hill was turned into the rightful seat for the contemporary emperors. Not the coronation in Saint Peter’s Basilica but the adventus into the city and the interaction with the SPQR drew special interest. Their classical discourse is not separated from, but was inextricably bound up with the world surrounding them: a world increasingly fascinated by the examples of the ancients. Petrarch and Beccari presented Charles IV as the defender and restorer of the res publica and their letters provided him with a classical discourse that could have supported his claims of independence vis-à-vis the pope. Their eloquence did not convince Charles to leave Prague for Rome. But if we consider the sources and the status of their authors, it is likely that the imperial presence in a Rome without pope increased the awareness of the city’s ancient past and had a catalytic effect on its humanist rediscovery.

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Schlotheuber 2016 = E. Schlotheuber, Die Kaiserkrönung Karls IV., die Goldene Bulle und die Einigung mit der Kirche, in J. Fajt, M. Hörsch (ed.), Kaiser Karl IV. Erste Bayerisch-Tschechische Landesausstellung. Ausstellungskatalog, Prague, 2016, p. 183-188.

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Schramm 1929 = P.E. Schramm, Kaiser, Rom und Renovatio, Leipzig, 1929.

Schwarz 2014 = J. Schwarz, Abkehr vom päpstlichen Krönungsanspruch. Das Kaisertum Ludwigs des Bayern und der römische Adel, in H. Seibert (ed.), Ludwig der Bayer (1314-1347). Reich und Herrschaft im Wandel, Regensburg, 2014, p. 119-146.

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Stoob 1990 = H. Stoob, Kaiser Karl IV. und seine Zeit, Vienna, 1990. 

Strothmann 1998 = J. Strothmann, Kaiser und Senat. Der Herrschaftsanspruch der Stadt Rom zur Zeit der Staufer, Vienna, 1998.

Suckale 1993 = R. Suckale, Die Hofkunst Kaiser Ludwigs des Bayern, Munich, 1993.

Suerbaum 1961 = W. Suerbaum, Vom antiken zum frühmittelalterlichen Staatsbegriff. Über Verwendung und Bedeutung von res publica, regnum, imperium und status von Cicero bis Jordanis, Münster, 1961.

Thomas 1993 = Heinz Thomas, Ludwig der Bayer (1282-1347). Kaiser und Ketzer, Regensburg, 1993. 

Thumser 1996 = M. Thumser, Friedrich II. und der römische Adel, in A. Esch, N. Kamp (ed.), Friedrich II. Tagung des Deutschen Historischen Instituts in Rom im Gedenkjahr 1994, Tübingen, 1996, p. 425-438.

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Wilks 1963 = M. Wilks, The problem of sovereignty in the later Middle Ages, Cambridge, 1963.

Witt 2000 = R. Witt, In the footsteps of the ancients. The origins of humanism from Lovato to Bruni, Leiden, 2000.

Zabbia 1999 = M. Zabbia, I notai e la cronachistica cittadina italiana nel Trecento, Rome, 1999.

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Notes

1 Len Scales argued that the absence of a central and coordinating power after the Hohenstaufen in fact contributed to many and rich reflections on the imperial idea: Scales 2012. This is true not only for the German parts of the empire, but also for Italy. Most recently, Alexander Lee explored a rich corpus of sources to show the proliferation of the imperial idea in fourteenth-century Italy: Lee 2018. The theme is further explored in the forthcoming proceedings of the conference Emperors and Imperial Discourse in Italy, c. 1300-1500. New Perspectives, which took place at the Royal Dutch Institute of Rome, the Istituto Storico Italiano per Il Medio Evo and the École française de Rome from 5 till 7 November 2018.

2 For Francesco da Barberino see Brilli 2016. On Cola di Rienzo, see for instance: Lee 2018, p. 125-131, 355-360; Internullo 2016, p. 436-437, 459; Duprè Theseider 1942, p. 79 on Cola di Rienzo: “è sempre Roma imperiale che domina la sua fantasia.” For Dante’s epistole arrighiane, see Alighieri. For the letters of Petrarch and Niccolò Beccari, see the section on Charles IV below.

3 Cavino 1991, p. 2; Schmitthenner 1923, p. 25, 26, 61.

4 For the general acceptance of the framework of a universal Roman Empire, one can point at the continuing popularity of pope-emperor chronicles, which have rarely been taken into account so far. See Mierau 2006, p. 281.

5 For the pro-imperial sentiments in fourteenth-century Rome: Holstein 2006; Internullo 2016, p. 343.

6 Falkeid 2017.

7 Riccobaldo da Ferrara, II, p. 751. In these accounts, Pope Boniface VIII refused to give the imperial crown to Albert of Habsburg and placed it on his own head. Versions of this anecdote also in Benvenuto da Imola’s Augustalis Libellus, in his Comentum, in Francesco Pepino’s Historia and in Ferreto: Lee 2018, p. 350, 367.

8 Hankins 2010, p. 462: suggests that res publica signified any government that serves the common good. Quillet 1988, p. 521: suggests to translate res publica as “men united in pursuit of a common aim”.

9 Judge 2008, p. 142.

10 See for a discussion of the term and its use: Suerbaum 1961. Therefore, it is not surprising that Benzo of Alba called Rome a rem publicam imperialem. In the twelfth century, the term res publica reappeared in political contexts, especially in relation to the legitimacy of imperial power (for instance, in the 1152 letter by the Romans to Frederick I). See Schoenian 1919, 42-43, 47, 58.

11 Martin of Troppau, Chronicon pontificum et imperatorum: Augustus auxerat rem publicam; Hadrian rem publicam iustissimis legibus ordinavit; Antonius Pius rem publicam ampliavit. The chronicle survives in hundreds of manuscripts and was translated into most vernacular languages.

12 The Carroccio was placed on the Capitoline Hill in a monument with an inscription that referred to the triumphs of Cesar (triumphos Cesaris): Guarducci 2003, p. 100.

13 Thumser 1996. The use of the term SPQR was itself already an ideological choice, Beneš 2009.

14 Kantorowicz 1927, II, 257-65: “Zu den Augustalen Friedrichs II.”.

15 Meredith 1994.

16 Petralia 2016, p. 20.

17 Const. 4.2, 1906, nr 644 (19 June 1311), p. 606-13. Ordo D in Elze 1960, p. 61-69, nr xvii. The prelates were the cardinal-bishops of Ostia, Albano, and Sabina, who traditionally already performed a role during the coronations, and the cardinal-deacons of Sancta Lucia and Sancta Maria in Via Lata.

18 Const. 4.2, nr 644, p. 612.

19 This again is a revision of Bowsky 1960, who postulated that primarily the city-states revolted, Petralia 2016, p. 34.

20 A good recent reconstruction of the events is Görich 2016. On Henry’s Romzug more generally see Pauler 1997.

21 For the election of Henry of Luxemburg and his relation with the pope see Heidemann 2008.

22 Many chroniclers of communal Italy were jurists or notaries. Zabbia 1999; Dale 2007.

23 Triumphans igitur in Mediolanoferrea corona, quam lauream appellabant, cited by Albanese 2016, p. 179-182.

24 The reward was based on his Ecerinis and his De gestis Henrici VII.

25 Witt 2000, p. 130. Because of the complexity of the Latin, his De gestis Henrici VII would have been incomprehensible to most of his literate contemporaries.

26 Witt 2000, p. 143.

27 M.E. Franke suggested that Mussato’s De gestis Henrici VII should be considered as a literary tragedy instead of a reliable source: Franke 1992, p. 27, 76.

28 Bortolami 1997, p. 59-60. Witt 2000, p. 164-166. Albanese 2016, p. 161.

29 An exception is Georg Miczka, who pointed out that Ferreti and Mussato “misused ancient terms: Miczka 1974.

30 The vocabulary was not purely ancient, but could also have been drawn from medieval classicizing texts or Isidore of Seville’s Etymologies on triumph. Schramm 1929, p. 40.

31 Ferreto de’ Ferreti, p. 45.

32 MacCormack 1981, p. 18, 21. Hack 1999, p. 283-370.

33 Ferreto de’ Ferreti, p. 45.

34 Const. 4:2, nr 777, p. 769-70.

35 Butrinto, p. 59.

36 Albanese 2016, p. 178: “curatissime orazioni…sono da considerarsi documenti di una storiografia ufficiale, ratificata dall’imperatore”. Ibidem, p. 182-185.

37 The term quirites is also used in the inscription on the medieval Casa dei Crescenzi in Rome. Also Frederick II, in his letter to the SPQR, addressed the Romans as quirites. See Thumser 1996, p. 426.

38 Mussato 1727, p. 452: Quid frequentes literae, quid nuntii celeres toties expetivere, nisi ut meum carum visitem senatum populumque romanum ? quo exultante in Capitolium vehar? All translations are mine, unless otherwise indicated. Celeres is also the term used for the bodyguards of the ancient Roman kings.

39 This was not completely new. In 1117, Emperor Henry V ascended the Capitol: see Petersohn 2009.

40 After the establishment of the Roman commune in 1143, the Romans were politically and ideologically organized to confront the claims of the two universal powers on their city. See Miglio 1997, II, p. 117-172; Maire Vigueur 2010.

41 See Schoenian 1919, 54-64; Petersohn 2010; Strothmann 1998. For other secular approaches to the Roman Empire in the Middle Ages see Blythe 2000, p. 52.

42 Godthardt 2011, p. 228.

43 Benjamin G. Kohl calls Mussato “Padua’s foremost republican defender”: Kohl 2010.

44 Lee 2015, p. 74.

45 Blythe 2000, p. 42.

46 Mussato 1727, p. 408: Fama tamen per Italiae civitates increbescebat populum Romanum praesertimque plebem commodis suarum rerum Regem exoptare.

47 Godthardt 2011, p. 236: states that the majority of the Roman people was hostile toward Henry (“mehrheitlich feindlich gegenüberstehend”). Görich 2016 (p. 97) suggests the opposite. For national stereotypes on the emperors in Italy, see Keller 2006.

48 Scholars such as Andreas Rehberg and Anna Modigliani have shown that clientele networks divided the Roman people in factions, faithful to opposing baronial families: Rehberg 2004.

49 Giovanni da Cermenate, p. 4: qui magnam scribendi causam nobis dedit. See also Franke 1992, p. 79-83.

50 Witt 2000, p. 169. There are many definitions of humanism: Lee 2018, p. xxii. Patrick Baker characterized fifteenth-century humanists as those who shared a love of antiquity, strove after the restoration of classical Latin eloquence, and believed that eloquence had an enormous cultural significance: Baker 2015, p. 234-235. In this article, I consider humanists those who consciously imitated the Latin of ancient authors. The term remains troublesome, because it is often associated with modernity, republicanism, critical methods, secular values, etc.

51 Giovanni da Cermenate, p. 17: nam nulla pax erit in populo, quem uniformitas voluntatum vinculo iustitiae colligata non excitat ad studium communis boni, quae sola exprimitur uniformi motu, et dependet ab unitate populi voluntatum.

52 Giovanni da Cermenate, p. 17. Cicero, De Republica, I.32.49; and later Marsilius of Padua, Defensor pacis, I, I 4: vinculo sive iure societatis humanae, cited in Quillet 1988, p. 533.

53 On the translatio imperii concept see Goez 1958.

54 Unfortunately, we do not know what Cermenate wrote about Henry’s presence in Rome: these pages have not survived. Giovanni da Cermenate, p. 108: desunt aliquot folia (also on p. 97). Except for a fragment, no medieval manuscripts have survived: see Ferrai in Giovanni da Cermenate, p. xxxi-xlv.

55 Ferreto de’ Ferreti, p. 50: locus ille quondam Iovi natoque veterum ritu dedicatus, Cesarum sedes inclita, facile capitur. Hac cesar sede potitus de more vetusto curules suis ducibus innovans, benificia queque distribuit, inter que Ludovicum de Sabaudia memoratum quo quidem senatoris titulo functus erat in idemptidem restauravit.

56 Falco 1911.

57 Margue 2009, p. 77.

58 Constitutiones 4:2, nr 789, 787-88: Cessio iurisdictionis in Urbe regi facta. The document of 13 June, however, was signed in the Torre delle Milizie. We do not possess documents of Henry that where signed on the Capitoline Hill. Widmer 2008, p. 119-122.

59 Heidemann 2008, p. 91.

60 Butrinto, p. 56: Domini cardinales de huiusmodi impedimento dolentes et continue afflicti super strage et destructione urbis, que continue fiebat, non valentes apponere remedium, libenter ipsum alibi quam in sancto Petro coronassent, sed timebant quod non possent virtute commissionis eis facte.

61 Duprè Theseider 1952, p. 411.

62 Carocci 2001, p. 104.

63 Forcella, vol. 1, p. 122-124, numbers 433, 434, 435, 437, 438; vol. 7, p. 297-298, numbers 596, 597, 598. For instance, the tomb of Egidius, abbot of Weissenburg in Santa Sabina: Hic requiescit dominus egidius de Varnsperch in regno Alemanie abbas ….

64 Mussato 1727, p. 456-457: Hunc conflictum Nicolaus de Bonsignoribus Senensis, qui tunc Capitolii sedem Ludovici Sabaudiensis Vicarius obtinebat, adnuntiatum est, flagrans excandescensque campanis undique per turritas Ecclesias ad certamen pulsatis, percussisque Populum Romanum elicuit praeconiis vocibus. The bells were also used to convoke parlamenti of the people, see: Maire-Vigueur 2010, p. 334.

65 Const. 4:2, nr 780, p. 778: illico pulsata campana in vos et sequaces vestros in civitate et extra potenter inruere vestramve vestrorumque duritiam.

66 Görich 2016 (p. 100) agrees that Henry used his contact with the Roman people to put pressure on the cardinals.

67 Mussato 1727, p. 460: Cardinalibus vero non assentientibus, Caesar Populum Romanum, illum videlicet, qui suas partes fovebat, in Concilium evocavit has proponens facti angustias, quidque expediat consultans. Ex plebiscito itaque obtentum est, Cardinales Reipublice suasionibus, precibusque Coronam dare. Even though the Romans living in the areas occupied by the anti-imperial party might not have attended the assembly on the Capitol, it was seen to symbolically represent the will of the Roman people.

68 Ferreto de’ Ferreti, p. 55: in vico publico ante Capitolii vestibulum cetus omnes Romani populi congregari iussit, quorum numerus supra quam decem millium virorum putatus est. Rome’s population counted between 20,000 and 50,000 in this period: Hubert 2001a, p. 174-75; Hubert 2001b.

69 Ferreto de’ Ferreti, p. 57: id volente senatu.

70 Ferreto de’ Ferreti, p. 57-58: ad hoc leges persuasorias applicent, que sacris Iustiniani Digestis, capitulo ‘De eo quod certo loco per commune’ et ‘De officio delegati lege statuimus, ut eos’ etc. clarissime rediguntur. Cino da Pistoia, advisor of Roman senator Louis of Savoye, was in Rome during the coronation and supported Henry. He was writing his comments on the Codex iustinianus in this period and may have played an important role, which remains to be explored. Carrai 2018.

71 Mussato 1727, p. 460: Reluctantibus itaque Cardinalibus Plebs commota est in illos excandescens.

72 Mathias von Neuenburg, p. 89: Differentibus autem cardinalibus, quorum unus obiit […] ex persuasione Hostiensis, qui Gibellinus fuit, et Stephani Columpna multitudo Romanorum irruit in palacium regis […] requirente rege quid vellent, illi se velle occidere voratores illos dicebant, qui stipendia militum devorarent.

73 Butrinto, p. 59: Satis timuimus illos rusticos insanos; et credo quod nisi fuisset dominus rex, qui illos quantum potuit mitigavit, pauci de clericis fuissent securi de vita.

74 Butrinto, p. 61: Qui cum non debuisset nec potuisset de jure, facere recusavit.

75 Const. 4:2, nr 794: Requisitiones iteratae cardinalibus factae, p. 792: Pretendens idem dominus rex multas rationes iuris et facti ad probandum quod ipsi cardinales ipsas coronationem et inhungtionem facere possint et debeant alibi quam in basilica predicta […] quia iura et canonica et civilia in hoc concordare videntur.

76 Const. 4:2, nr 794, p. 792: tum quia per retardationem dicte coronationis multe strages, multa homicidia, rapine, depredationes et mala alia quam plurima specialiter in Urbe et etiam alibi iam evenerunt.

77 Once before an emperor had been crowned in St John Lateran: on Sunday 4 June 1133 Pope Innocent II had crowned Lothar III there. See Bäseler 1919, p. 128-130.

78 Elze 1960, nr xx, p. 104.

79 Görich 2016, p. 101. Ferreto de’ Ferreti called this bridge pons de la Forma.

80 Const. 4:1, nr 644, p. 611: Consuevit etiam rex, quando descendit de monte Gaudii et venit ad ponticellum, prestare hoc iuramentum Romanis: ‘Ego Henricus rex futurus imperator iuro me servaturum Romanis bonas consuetudines suas. Sic me Deus adiuvet et hec sancta evangelia’. Elze 1960, p. 104.

81 Ferreto de’ Ferreti, p. 59: denique ad pontem de la Forma, gradu sollicito, pervenit, ubi, iuxta Cesarum sanctiones populique normam, rem publicam tueri, legesque servare pollicitus est.

82 Ferreto de’ Ferreti, p. 60.

83 Görich 2016, p. 102.

84 Margue 2009, p. 79; in the illustrated chronicle of Villani, Henry is crowned by three men as well: Frugoni 2005, p. 227. The crowners were Arnaldus of Sabina, Nicholas of Ostia, Luca of Santa Maria in Via Lata: Const. 4:2, nr 797, p. 798. Görich 2016, p. 103: states that Arnaldus of Sabina actually put the crown on Henry’s head. This cardinal, according to the ordo, had to say the words Accipe signum glorie when the crown was placed on the emperor’s head. Butrinto refers to him as dominus legatus, so probably he bore the responsibility over the papal delegation. But the ordo states that the legates had to crown the emperor together: Vos autem universi imponatis mitras… et diademata regi et regine predictis.

85 As described in the ordo: Const. 4:1, nr 644, p. 610.

86 Const. 4:1, nr 644, p. 611: Scriniarii vero Urbis serecis capis induti ante pectorale consistentes in choro respondeant: ‘Domino Henrico invictissimo Romanorum imperatori et semper augusto salus et victoria’.

87 Mussato 1727, p. 462: multis cleri, populique applausibus inclyto Imperatori Henrico semper Augusto vitam, victoriamque conclamantibus universis.

88 Aldrete 1999, p. 101-108, 112, 128.

89 Mussato 1727, p. 462-463: in Aventinum ad parata convivia, comessationesque cum Nobilibus et Plebe delatus est. Commesatio has a connotation of excessive feasting, and is also associated with bacchanal processions.

90 Butrinto, p. 60: secundum quod in ordinario scribitur et in litteris vestris continetur.

91 Mussato 1727, p. 462: protestantibus cardinalibus, scilicet legato, et Luca de Flisco non sua sponte, sed plebis, regisque impulsibus coactis parere coronam auream capiti eius imposuere.

92 Ferreto de’ Ferreti, p. 64: Sed hec Urbs potissiumum illi velut tenax anchora fixa est, ut, victis fugatisque hostibus, tranquilla potiatur libertate.

93 Ferreto de’ Ferreti, p. 65: si Urbem urbium in quiete adiciat, que Cesarum sedes et orbis regina merito dicitur.

94 Mussato 1727, p. 508: Denuo quoque compertum est dispositis ad huius plebisque libitum rebus precipue potentioribus fusis omnia hec parari cesari ipsum evocandum in urbem vehendumque triumphaliter in capitolium principatum ab sola plebe recogniturum. Or perhaps to “accept”.

95 Arlotti remained in power until February 1313, see Holstein 2016, p. 87-93.

96 Compagni, p. 149: “lo imperadore con le sue forze vi farà prendere e rubare per mare e per terra.” This is the final sentence of the chronicle, which survives in about 30 manuscripts. See Bratu 2010.

97 Collard 2001; Pontari 2016a and 2016b; Mallegni 2016.

98 Bowsky 1960.

99 Giovanni Villani, II, liber X.1, p. 211.

100 See the discussion in Pertile 1997, p. 1.

101 Giovanni Villani, II, liber X.136, p. 336.

102 Giovanni Villani, II, liber X.53, p. 257-258.

103 Petrarch, X, 1, p. 246.

104 The classical biography is Thomas 1993.

105 Giovanni Villani, II, liber XI.20, p. 543: “Romani si levarono a romore e feciono popolo perché non aveano la corte del papa né dello ’mperadore.” Whaley 1982. This revolution was directed indirectly against Robert of Anjou, who was appointed “Roman senator for life” by Pope Clement V in 1313, and who made vicars govern the city. Miglio 1997, p. 151; Holstein 2006, p. 95-100.

106 Anonimo, p. 14: “caporioni.”

107 Giovanni Villani, II, liber XI.22, p. 546-547.

108 Anonimo, p. 19.

109 Giovanni Villani, II, liber XI.55, p. 582.

110 Mussato 2015, p. 233.

111 Mussato 2015, p. 257: ut Roma caput mundi apicis sui gloriam non amittat.

112 Mussato 2015, p. 258: Populus Romanus ut Deus ab excelsis veniente gavisus illum magnis alacritatibus preconiorumque applausibus excepit.

113 Vita Ludovici quarti, p. 156-157.

114 Vita Ludovici quarti, p. 157: advenisti desiderabilis, quem expectabamus pro domino, quia tu factus es spes desolatis et magna consolacio hiis, que sunt in tormentis.

115 For the eschatological role of the Roman empire in medieval historiography see for instance Lettinck 1983, p. 24-42. Brilli 2015.

116 Mussato 2015, p. 259: Sicque Lodoici Romanorum regis nomen ac titulum vociferante populo (illum vivere ac regnare), in Capitolium ipse reginaque pariter consedere concessa plebi populoque Romano de rebus imperii potestate consulendi effitiendique quicquid statui rei publice pertineret. Status rei publicae has been translated as “il particolare modo di essere della organizzazione di un popolo” (cited in Suerbaum 1961, p. 64). Suerbaum suggests that, by adding the term status to res publica, the term became more concrete, perhaps referring to the particular modes of organisation of the Roman people.

117 See note 55. The edition reads cetus, cf. coetus.

118 Giovanni Villani, II, liber XI.55, p. 583: “com’egli avea intenzione di mantenergli e innalzargli, e di mettere il popolo di Roma in ogni buono stato.”

119 Ibidem: “E nel detto parlamento s’ordinò la sua coronazione la domenica vegnente”. Godthardt states that Louis, not the Romans, decided the date for the coronation: Godthardt 2011, p. 231. To me it seems a common decision of the gathering.

120 Godthardt 2011, p. 240-253. Godthardt, after Friedensburg, translated it as “Kaiserordo”, Schwarz as “Reichsgesetz” and Heinz Thomas suggested this could have been the Codex iustiniani: Schwarz 2014, p. 131.

121 Giovanni Villani, II, liber XI.56, p. 585: “E non trovando niuno difetto, fuori la benedizione e confermazione del papa, che non v’era”.

122 Godthardt 2011, p. 230-33, 270, 310: “Daher können auch die bei der Kaiserkrönung Ludwigs des Bayern beteiligten Römer nach Marsilius keine konstitutive Funktion besitzen”.

123 For papalist views see Wilks 1963, p. 254.

124 Giovanni Villani, II, liber XI.56, p. 584: “Come Lodovico di Baviera si fece coronare per lo popolo di Roma per loro re e imperadore.”

125 Mathias von Neuenburg, p. 368.

126 Gesta Baldewini, liber III.5, 245: non ab ecclesia, sed a senatu fuerat in imperatorem coronatus.

127 Const. 6.1, nr 383, p. 286: Castruccii encyclical in die coronationis scripta, The ritum refers to the ordo, which was also mentioned by Villani. Castruccio, in his letter, emphasized that both new and old usages were respected in the coronation ceremony.

128 Whereas, for instance, Pauler presents Sciarra Colonna as crowner, Schwarz suggests that the excommunicated bishops crowned Louis (Godthardt, however, has shown the unlikeliness of this: Godthardt 2011, p. 248, 257) and calls the coronation by Sciarra Colonna a ‘legend’ (indeed, no contemporary source claims that he is the sole coronator): Schwarz 2014, p. 132; Pauler 1997, p. 155 (they both use Villani as their source).

129 The most important chroniclers, among whom Villani, state that a number of lay Romans crowned the emperor. In some sources they are called the “syndics of the Roman people”. See for the best analysis so far: Godthardt 2011, p. 236-284, 309. Beside discussing the historiographical narratives, Godthardt used documents from the papal trial after the coronation to show that several Roman citizens were accused of crowning the emperor, whereas the bishop Giacomo of Castello was held responsible for anointing the emperor (p. 254-258).

130 Giovanni Villani, II, liber XI.56, p. 586.

131 It is another aspect that is reminiscent of a classical Roman triumph: the ancients used to hold a banquet after the completion of ceremonies at the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill.

132 On Marsilius of Padua’s influence on Louis IV see Godthardt 2011.

133 Marsilius of Padua 2005, II.26.4, p. 451.

134 Marsilius of Padua 1979, p. 430: ad solemnitatem, non quidem propter necessitatem aliquam. It remains unclear whether the coronation as such, or the coronation by the “Roman bishop” was not necessary.

135 Kurze 1892, p. 112: a cuncto Romanorum populo adclamatum [also acclamatum] est. Marsilius of Padua 1979, p. 420: a cuncto Romano populo acclamatum est. In the most popular late-medieval chronicle, Martin of Troppau’s Chronicon pontificum et imperatorum, Charlemagne was made emperor thanks to the Romans: ob rogatum Romanorum factus est imperator.

136 This leads Godthardt to write: “Es ist nicht erkennbar, dass Marsilius dem römischen Volk eine weitergehende Beteiligung bei der Kaiserkrönungszeremonie zugesteht als in der Tradition der Kaiserkrönungen üblich.” Godthardt 2011, p. 124.

137 Marsilius of Padua 1979, p. 420: imperialium laudum acclamationem per populum. The senators leading the twelfth-century Roman commune also made their decisions by acclamatio of the people: Petersohn 2010, p. 90.

138 Giovanni Villani, liber XI.56, p. 586: “non troverrai per nulla cronica antica o novella che nullo imperadore cristiano mai si facesse coronare se non al papa o a suo legato”. An exception, which Villani overlooked, was Charlemagne’s coronation of his son Louis the Pious in Aachen in 813.

139 Mussato 2015, p. 285-286: ipsum strenuo animo Alpes transisse, Mediolani coronam ferream suscepisse, inde, per Tusciam permeantem, Roman pervollasse, in Capitolium sedisse, senatorem consulesque ac decuriones et tribunos more Romani imperatoris creasse; a populi Romani concione laudatum approbatum fuisse, omnia vasto animo aggressum que viro audatie eximieque virtutis pertinuerint. [Per] hec et nomine et re dignum Cesarum Romanorumque regem nuncupandum vocandum [dignum] que fecere.

140 Mussato may also have been inspired by high medieval texts such as Benzo of Alba, p. 512: creavit novos centuriones, tribunos ac senatores […] secundum antiqum morem. Schramm 1929, p. 273-274.

141 Schoenian 1919, p. 56. Other examples in Cavino 1991; Duprè Theseider 1942, p. 255-269.

142 Godthardt 2011, p. 129.

143 Godthardt 2011, p. 133.

144 Hohensee 2009.

145 Mussato 2015, p. 286-287.

146 For the creation of antipope Nicolaus V and the second coronation by this pope on 22 May see: Godthardt 2011, p. 385-400.

147 Mussato 2015, p. 288: nil ipsius merite dignitati auctoritatique detrahere intendentes, sed aliorum posterum veritatis iuditium reservantes.

148 Wilks 1963, p. 247.

149 Scales 2012, p. 258.

150 Giovanni Villani, VII, p. 1: considers himself as part of the populari.

151 Mussato 2015, p. 259-260: Plebs vero ac populus, ut eorum moris semper est novis gaudere rebus, non modo Ludovici nomen extollere, sed et papam Ioannem detastari criminari in publicum cepere, verumque papam negare.

152 Giovanni Villani, p. 605: “De la detta sentenzia i savi uomini di Roma molto si turbarono; l’altro semplice popolo ne fece gran festa.”

153 Suckale 1993, p. 31, ill. 14; Pietrangeli 1960. More details on the bull and references in Schwarz 2014, p. 138-145.

154 More on Louis’ perspective in Godthardt 2011, p. 285-301.

155 Blythe 2000, p. 51.

156 As Scales wrote “Rome as idea still mattered”: Scales 2012, p. 257. On the fifteenth century, see the articles by Veronika Proske and Riccardo Pallotti in the forthcoming volume Emperors and imperial discourse in Italy, c. 1300-1500. New perspectives, A. Huijbers (ed.).

157 For the image of Charles IV in historiography more generally see Frey 1978. Classical works on Charles IV are Patze 1978; Seibt 1978; Stoob 1990; on the Italian campaigns of his father John of Bohemia see Margue 1996.

158 On Charles IV and Petrarch see Bayley 1942; Blanc 1986; Six letters were written between 1351 and 1355: Petrarch, Fam. X.1, XII.1, XVIII.1, XIX.1, XIX.4, XIX.12. Other letters followed in 1358, 1361, 1362 and 1365.

159 William of Ockham also considered the empire as secular in origin: first the community conferred jurisdiction to the emperor, then it received God’s blessing. Blythe 2000, p. 51.

160 Crevatin 2012, p. 168.

161 Petrarch, X.1, p. 240. Špička 2010, p. 535. Other letters XIX.4, 336-41, 12, 370.

162 Petrarch, X.1, p. 247: reformandeque reipublice propositum.

163 Petrarch, XVIII.1, p. 224-225; 227: ut reipublice deformitates aboleas.

164 Cited in Sistrunk 1991, p. 117: sicut maritus defensor uxoris […] ita et imperator rei publicae. This idea had ancient precedents: the Historiae augustae handed down that it was impossible to have a res publica without an emperor: Suerbaum 1961, p. 148.

165 Petrarch, XIX.1 (Milan, October or November 1354), p. 318-321.

166 Const. 8, nr 9-13, p. 11-27 and nr 91, p. 117-119; Johannis Porta de Annoniaco. Charles IV returned to Rome in 1368, together with Pope Urban V. For the impression this made on the humanist Coluccio Salutati, see Lee 2018, p. 141-143.

167 For a more extensive account on Charles in Rome see Bauch 2015, p. 136-149.

168 For the nickname rex clericorum, see Frey 1978, p. 16; Bauch 2015, p. 148, 436. Schlotheuber 2016.

169 A jurist who defended the imperial deeds of Henry VII, stated the same: see Heidemann 2008, p. 209.

170 Petrarch, XIX.12, p. 375: Boemie rex solius.

171 Matteo Villani, I, p. 607: “Lo ’mperadore nome sormonta li altri per somma magnificenza, al qual solea ubidire tutte le nazioni dell’universo… l’infedeli hanno quello in dispregio.”

172 Matteo Villani, I, p. 587, 608.

173 Beccari, Niccolò, in DBI, vol. 7, 1970, p. 437-440: Beccari was an official at the court of Charles IV and was staying in Magdeburg when he wrote the letter.

174 Folz 1962.

175 Niccolò Beccari, p. 266: he refers to the lex regia.

176 Ibidem, p. 278: Ita te augustissima in maiestate niveo et ornatissimo currui triumphali invectum presidentem aspicio […].

177 Ibidem, p. 280: via recta ad Capitolium […] ubi et in quo caput et sedes est Imperii eritque inperpetuum […] tria verba sola […] pronunciabis que Iulius Cesar quondam, auctor et parens imperii […].

178 Ibidem, 281: vetusto more […] publice perlegetur […] ORPR - ob rem publicam restitutam.

179 Although these four words are not abbreviated on the arch of Septimius Severus, Beccari probably was inspired by this example. For other ancient uses of res publica restituta see Hurlet 2009, p. 11-12.

180 In antiquity, res publica was sometimes used in a personified way as well, to signify something like the public good, the people or the country: Judge 2008, p. 143.

181 Suerbaum 1961, p. 228-229.

182 In their letters, however, the expression res publica referred not just to the Roman commune, but to a larger imperial territory.

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Titre Fig. 1 – Codex Balduini Trevirensis. Rex facit senatorem et iusticias Rome in capitolio sedens. Koblenz, Landeshauptarchiv 1C1, fol. 22a.
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Titre Fig. 2 – Imperial seal of Louis the Bavarian with the Senatorial Palace on the Capitoline Hill depicted centrally, 25 October 1328. Münzkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, 18239302. Photo by Lutz-Jürgen Lübke (Lübke und Wiedemann).
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Anne Huijbers, « Res publica restituta? Perceiving emperors in fourteenth-century Rome »Mélanges de l’École française de Rome - Moyen Âge [En ligne], 132-1 | 2020, mis en ligne le 26 mars 2020, consulté le 09 février 2025. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/mefrm/6684 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/mefrm.6684

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Anne Huijbers

a.m.h.huijbers@gmail.com

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