Pier delle Vigne

The most powerful official in the court of Emperor Frederick II (1194–1250), Petrus de Vinea or Pier delle Vigne (b. c. 1190–d. 1240) served as judge, diplomat, chancellor, and polemicist, as well as familiaris, or personal advisor to the emperor. A master of the high style of prose, Pier and his colleagues created a political language charged with the majesty and mystery of sovereignty that would remain influential until the early 15th century. The life of Pier delle Vigne before he joined the Magna Curia is largely unknown. His presence in the imperial chancery is first documented in 1224 when he is listed as an imperial court judge (magne imperialis curie iudex), although he entered the service of the emperor in 1221 as “notarius,” an official whose duties were more similar to those of a modern lawyer. Scholars continue to debate Pier’s participation in the composition of important documents from his early years in the chancery, including the proclamation on the origins of princely power in the Proemium to the Liber Augustalis (1231), Frederick’s code of laws for the kingdom. In the 1230s, Pier served as ambassador, representing imperial interests in missions to Pope Gregory IX in 1232 and to England in 1234, where he negotiated the marriage of Frederick and Isabella, sister of King Henry III, and was made an English citizen. Between 1236 and 1248, he was the principal author of important imperial letters and propaganda manifestos, documents that served as powerful political instruments intended to sway public opinion in favor of the imperial cause. In 1243 Pier identifies himself as imperial protonotary, or head of the imperial chancery, and logothete, or spokesman of the kingdom of Sicily, and, as such, Pier’s power was second only to that of the emperor. All concessions by the emperor, negotiations, political statements, and financial matters passed through his hands. His precipitous downfall remains a mystery but is generally explained as punishment for embezzlement and corruption of justice for personal gain. Branded a traitor by the emperor, Pier was arrested in Cremona in 1249 and transported to San Miniato, where Frederick ordered that he be blinded and where he died. In a letter to Count Richard of Caserta, Frederick condemns Pier’s avarice. Today Pier is remembered as Dante’s tortured thornbush in the wood of the suicides, where his soul speaks of an illustrious and loyal career cut short by the envy of other courtiers.