Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, also called Stupor mundi (Wonder of the World), was a notable European ruler who left a controversial political and cultural legacy. Considered by some to be "the most brilliant of medieval German monarchs, and probably of all medieval rulers", and admired for his multifaceted activities in the fields of government building, legislative work, cultural patronage and science, he has also been criticized for his cruelty and despotism.
In Italy, the emperor gained a split image, with one element being favoured over the other depending on the era and the region: tyrant, heretic, enlightened despot, Puer Apulia (Boy from Apulia), and father of the Fatherland. Modern scholars generally praise the emperor's many talents, but the degree Frederick's actions and attitude can be considered to be a break from contemporary norms, as well as his contribution to contemporary advancement of knowledge (in the context of Sicilian and Hohenstaufen legacies, as well as cultural developments by other courts) is often subject to debates.
Historiography
German and English accounts Ernst Kantorowicz's biography, Frederick the Second, original published in 1927, is a very influential work in the historiography of the emperor. Kantorowicz praises Frederick as a genius, who created the "first western bureaucracy", an "intellectual order within the state" that acted like "an effective weapon in his fight with the Church—bound together from its birth by sacred ties in the priestly-Christian spirit of the age, and uplifted to the triumphant cult of the Deity Justitia." Kantorowicz's writings about Frederick were abused during the Nazi period for propaganda purpose. Joseph Mali and Yôsef Malî argue that Frederick II were not important for the Nazis the way Frederick Barbarossa or Karl the Great, as exemplars of pure Aryanness, were though. They also note that while Kantorowicz endorsed Burckhardt's thinking, that Frederick was the prototypical modern ruler, whose Gewaltstaat later became the model of tyrannies for all Renaissance princes, Kantorowicz primarily saw Frederick as the last and greatest Christian emperor, who embraced "Medieval World Unity".
For the famous 19th century English historian Edward Augustus Freeman, in genius and accomplishments, Frederick II was “surely the greatest prince who ever wore a crown”, superior to Alexander, Constantine or Charlemagne, who failed to grasp nothing in the “compass of the political or intellectual world of his age”. Freeman even considered Frederick to have been the last true Emperor of the West. The Emperor Frederick the Second in Historial Essays, Volume I, Macmillan and Co., 1871. p. 284-286. Lionel Allshorn wrote in his 1912 biography of the Emperor that Frederick surpassed all of his contemporaries and introduced “the only enlightened concept of the art of government” in the Middle Ages. Stupor Mundi; the Life & Times of Frederick II, Emperor of the Romans, King of Sicily and Jerusalem, 1194-1250, M. Secker, 1912. p. 350 Dr. M. Schipa, in the Cambridge Medieval History, considered Frederick II a “creative spirit” who had “no equal” in the centuries between Charlemagne and Napoleon, forging in Sicily and Italy “the state as a work of art” and laid the “fertile seeds of a new era.” in The Cambridge Medieval History Volume VI Victory of the Papacy, Cambridge University Press, 1929. pp. 165. The noted Austrian cultural historian Egon Friedell saw Frederick as the greatest of the ‘four great rulers’ in history, embodying the far-seeing statecraft of Julius Caesar, the intellectuality of Frederick the Great, and the enterprise and “artist’s gaminerie” of Alexander the Great. For Friedell, Frederick’s “free mind” and “universal comprehension” of everything human stemmed from the conviction that no one was right. W. Köhler wrote that Frederick’s “marked individuality” made him the “ablest and most mature mind” of the Hohenstaufen who towered above his contemporaries. For Frederick, knowledge was power, and because of his knowledge, he wielded despotic power. Though the “sinister facts” of his despotism should not be ignored, the greatness of his mind and his energetic will compels admiration.
Thomas Curtis Van Cleve's 1972 The Emperor Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, Immutator Mundi also acknowledges the emperor's genius, as a ruler, lawgiver and also as a scientist. Karl Leyser opines that Kantorowicz and Cleve as well as other historians are too hagiographic. Leyser writes that Frederick was an individual with many gifts, but was "neither likeable nor reassuring", with a personality damaged greatly during his terrible childhood. Leyser also believes that Cleve exaggerates the role of Frederick's court in the transmission of Aristotelian and Arabic knowledge to Western court: Frederick's court was important but did not play the leading role, let alone monopolizing this process.
In 1992, David Abulafia wrote a revisionist work which argues that Frederick was not a rationalist or an early free-thinker, but a medieval ruler concerned with dynastic goals and also a "victim of his dual inheritance", who was forced to act in his own defense in front of popes who were determined to destroy his power. Regarding his cultural activities, Abulafia opines that "Frederick's cultural patronage was a pale shadow of that of his Norman ancestors" and that his reign marked "the end, not the revival, of convivencia in his southern kingdom."
Dorothea Weltecke notes that despite Abulafia's effort to destroy what he saw as German mystification of a "medieval emperor", most historians today still see Frederick as a man who transcended his time and shared our values of secularism, tolerance and rationalism. Weltecke opines that Frederick's diverse style of ruling in his different lands and his ability to adapt make it difficult to present in a coherent manner his politics, let alone his personality, that in his time, already provoked either "profound adoration or vehement rejection". Regarding his role in Arabic-Christian transfer of knowledge though, Weltecke writes that the Medieval Christian culture was not a monolithic entity unanimously hostile to Muslims, thus it was not necessary for Frederick to possess a hybrid personality to be the competent diplomat and promoter of science he was. Other forces in Latin states sought Muslim cooperation against Frederick, while other religious and secular figures like Alfonso IX of León also played a role in the emergence of universities and the transfer of knowledge from the Islamic world.
Regarding Frederick's charters of 1220 and 1231/1232 (that granted princes great privileges that facilitating territorialization in the Empire), although it is not denied that the strengthening of spiritual (and princely in general) authority came along with the weakening of central power, recent scholarship tends to point out that Frederick only confirmed an already existing reality - the Confoederatio of 1220 only collected and repeated existing individual privileges. Wilson does not see the situation as a negative development, but rather the representation of a division of labour between emperor and princes, which was generally complementing rather than contradicting. Fried writes that Frederick did want to safeguard imperial privileges, but ultimately he had to accept the situation. Benjamin Arnold argues that royal power in Germany remained strong under Frederick. By the 1240s the crown was almost as rich in fiscal resources, towns, castles, enfeoffed retinues, monasteries, ecclesiastical advocacies, manors, tolls, and all other rights, revenues, and jurisdictions as it had ever been at any time since the death of Henry VI. It is unlikely that a particularly “strong ruler” such as Frederick II would have even pragmatically agreed to legislation that was concessionary rather than cooperative, neither would the princes have insisted on such. Therefore, the Statutum in favorem principum and Frederick’s other German legislation were practical solutions to secure the further support of the German princes while he ruled in the peripatetic style typical of a monarch with vast territories.
Italian accounts Interest in Frederick (usually called Federico II di Svevia) from Italian scholars is also very strong, especially in Apulia, where his image has become a foundation for unity. Kurstjens notes that, although vilified in Northern Italy and generally controversial, Frederick is still viewed unanimously as the founder of the Italian language.
According to Roberto Delle Donne, historically, Frederick had been vilified by the Church as a tyrant. From the eighteenth century and especially with the Risorgimento in the nineteenth century, many scholars saw Frederick in a different light. Pietro Giannone's great work Istoria civile del Regno di Napoli (1723) praised Frederick for being an "advocate of jurisdictionalism, centralizer and enlightened despot", as opposed to the past Spanish viceroyalty and the contemporary Emperor Charles VI. Ludovico Antonio Muratori, in his Annali d'Italia (1743–1749), publicized the figure of Frederick as a ruler with “a big heart, great intellectual power and prudence, as well as a love of belles-lettres, which he was the first to bring into his Reich and spread there, in addition to his sense of justice, which was why he was able to develop many optimal regulations, finally his knowledge of different languages...". During the Risorgimento, the new Ghibelline reinterpretation of Frederick II as the "Father of the Fatherland" was expressed most fully in Luigi Settembrini's “Lezioni di Letteratura Italiana", (written in 1848, published between 1866 and 1872): "Frederick II alone was able to create the unity of Italy, because he had the power, the right, the fortitude, because he was born and raised Italian, because he wanted his empire here." Kurstjens also notes that, although his reputation in the North was worse than in the South, both due to his own actions in subjugating their cities and because of Northern Italians' ongoing conflicts with later emperors, with the rise of the Risorgimento, Frederick became a topical matter and came to be seen by many as the precursor to Italian unity.
The 2008 book Lo strano caso di Federico II di Svevia. Un mito medievale nella cultura di massa by the Italian journalist Marco Brando addresses the matter of contemporary mythologization surrounding Frederick II. Brando was inspired by his mentor, the historian Raffaele Licinio. The book caused considerable backlash, especially from scholars in Apolia.
An introduction to the 2014 work Federico II le nozze di Oriente e Occidente. L'età federiciana in terra di Brindisi by historian Antonio Mario Caputo reads: A man of controversial actions, he was a multifaceted personality, so complex as to raise passionate criticism or exaltation among opposing factions. "Miserly and angry", according to his Guelph detractors; "Wise, enlightened and dispenser of justice", for the Ghibellines. Among the first group, the Franciscan Salimbene de Adam stands out