The Stupor mundi, the one “who shone on the people” – as his son Conrad IV remembered him – died forever on 13 December 1250. Many have seen Frederick II of Swabia as the first modern sovereign, who endowed the South with a efficient administration and a coherent body of laws. Highly cultured (he spoke six languages) and refined, among other things he built Castel del Monte, in Puglia, and transformed the court of Palermo into a center of culture and art that had no equal in Europe at the time.
He always had to fight against his bitter enemy, the Papacy: excommunicated several times, he was accused of Epicureanism and heresy by Guelph propaganda and accused of being the Antichrist. Dante, who also admired him as a man, placed him in Hell, with Farinata: “Here with more than a thousand I lie: in here is the second Federico, and the Cardinal; and I remain silent about the others”…
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Today’s almanac, December 13th: Frederick II, the decline of Stupor Mundi
https://www.repubblica.it/cronaca/almanacco-del-giorno/2024/12/13/news/almanacco_accadde_oggi_13_dicembre_2024_federico_ii_il_tramonto_dello_stupor_mundi-423883760/?rss