Evento n.7

Salimbene from Parma was a Franciscan friar who as ashamed to beg because, an aristocrat of birth, he was supposed to ride horses, have a good time at tournaments, and courting beautiful women. As a young man, Salimbene had blindly believed end-of-the-world prophecies, and had been terribly disappointed to find out they were not true. He was moved to tears by the humanity of Saint Louis, the king of France, but could not refrain from admiring the brilliant excommunicated emperor Frederic II. Salimbene wrote in Latin interspersed with biblical quotations, but thought in a Po River Valley dialect. He had no regard for anyone and he was inclined to make politically incorrect statements, as when he dubbed southern Italians homines caccarelli et merdaçoli. Through his monumental work entitled Cronaca we discover that a Middle Ages friar could be far more entertaining and unprejudiced than we would ever expect.