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Ancona, Byzantium and the Adriatic, 1155–1173

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2013

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Ancona, bisanzio e l'adriatico — 1155–1173

L'argomento di questo articolo é il rapporto tra la cittá commerciale di Ancona e l'imperatore bizantino Manuel Komneno, espresso in una alleanza politico-militare durata dal 1155 al 1173. Si tenta di spiegare ció che una cittá italiana di media grandezza potesse rappresentare per Bisanzio nella sua ampia strategia di confronto con i Normanni di Sicilia e, piú tardi, con l'imperatore germanico Federico Barbarossa. I Bizantini non solo attribuirono grande importanza al loro simbolico « ritorno in Italia », ma usarono Ancona come base strategico-militare e come deposito di grandi quantitativi d'oro, col quale speravano di guadagnare alleati nell'Italia nord-rientale. Col miglioramento dei rapporti coi Normanni, Ancona non perse la sua importanza poiché era anche una leva contro i Veneziani, che Manuel Komneno vedeva con crescente ostilitá. La presenza di Costantino Donkas, dux della Dlmazia, ad Ancona nel 1173, sottolinea l'importanza che Ancona aveva in una piú ampia politica di espansione bizantina nell'Adriatico. Ancona, tuttavia, non fu posta sotto il governo diretto di Bisanzio, ma fu onorata dai Greci come cittá libera che era volontariamente entrata nell'orbita bizantina.

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Copyright © British School at Rome 1984

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References

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18 See below for the career of Alexander of Gravina, a familiar figure at the western and eastern imperial courts.

19 Chalandon, ii. 205.

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27 The adhesion of Guglielmo Marchesella, Aldruda di Bertinoro and others is described by Buoncompagno, 27–31; cf. Niketas Choniates, 202; Eustathios, passim, etc.

28 Sudendorf, ii. 131.

29 Sudendorf, loc. cit.

30 Salerno, Thus Romuald of, Chronicon, ed. Garufi, C. A. (Rerum italicarum scriptores, ser. 2, vii, 1), 265Google Scholar, indicates.

31 Sudendorf, ii. 132.

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33 ‘Filium videlicet Megal. domest.’ is what Sudendorf gives (ii. 132) but both his MSS are post-medieval.

34 Kinnamos, 170.

35 ‘Qui misso ad nos comite Alex.’ (Sudendorf, ii. 132); on this passage, see Chalandon, ii. 253 n.; cf. Chalandon, ii. 190–1, 198, 205, 216, 280–1, for aspects of his career. Dr. J. S. F. Parker informed me that his researches on Byzantine-Sicilian relations led him to identify more than one Alexander of Gravina in the mid-twelfth century, presumably father and son.

36 Sudendorf, ii. 132.

37 Sudendorf, loc. cit.

38 Sudendorf, ii. 133.

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42 Classen, 277.

43 A good discussion of the coronation question is provided by Parker, 86; Cf. Boso, , Liber Pontificalis, ed. Duchesne, L. (Paris, 18861892), ii. 415, 419Google Scholar.

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45 Other expeditions by the German rulers into Italy proved the necessity for access to fleets if they were to achieve their objectives: compare the assaults on southern Italy planned by Barbarossa—Abulafia, Two Italies, 123–33.

46 Abulafia, Two Italies, 133.

47 Lamma, , Comneni e Staufer, i. 301–2Google Scholar.

48 Archivo di Stato, Venice, Codex diplomaticus Lanfranchi, 1100–1199, anno 1141, p. 1: and ibid., Liber Pactorum i, f. 187v–188r.

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50 Luzzatto, G., ‘I più antichi trattati tra Venezia e le città marchigiane’, Nuovo Archivio Venelo, n.s., vi (1906), 7–8, 4950Google Scholar. See also Leonhard, Seestadt Ancona, 33–4.

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53 Buoncompagno, 17.

54 Ciavarino, C., ed., Statuti Anconitani del Mare, del Terzenale e della Dogana e Patti condiverse nazioni, i (Ancona, 1896), 61Google Scholar: ‘de lo datio che se dè pagare da quelli che vai en Costantinopoli per la chiesa de Sancto Stefano de Costantinopoli’. See now Pertusi, A., ‘The Anconitan colony in Constantinople and the report of its consul, Benvenuto, on the fall of the city’, Charanis Studies: essays in honour of Peter Charanis, ed. Laiou-Thomadakis, A. E., (New Brunswick, 1980), 199218Google Scholar, suggesting that in the late twelfth-century the church of St. Stephen at Constantinople was already a base for Anconitan merchants.

55 Buoncompagno, 12 n.

56 Such an attempt characterizes Ancona Repubblica Marinara, cit., though one contributor is especially rebellious: G. Franceschini, ‘Ancona e le repubbliche marinare’, 56–9.

57 Carile, ‘Federico Barbarossa’, 9–17.

58 Petrucci, Armando, ed., Codice diplomatico del monastero benedettino di S. Maria di Tremiti (1005–1237), 3 vols. (Fonti per la storia d'ltalia, xcviii, Rome, 1960), iii. 277–8Google Scholar.

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60 Abulafia, David, ‘The Anconitan privileges in the kingdom of Jerusalem and the Levant trade of Ancona’, The Italian communes in the crusading kingdom of Jerusalem: a colloquium at the Van Leer Institute, Jerusalem, May 1984 (GenoaGoogle Scholar, forthcoming).

61 Abulafia, ‘Dalmatian Ragusa’, 418.

62 Buoncompagno, 15–17.

63 Buoncompagno, 17.

64 Buoncompagno, 23.

65 Lane, F. C., Venice: a maritime republic (Baltimore, 1973), 63–5Google Scholar.

66 Intense competition for the resources of the Bosnian hinterland—slaves, metals, forest products—can also be postulated. See Carter, F. W., ‘Dubrovnik: the early development of a pre-industrial city’, Slavonic and East European Review, xlvii (1969), 354–68Google Scholar.

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69 Dandolo, Andrea, Cronica, ed. Pastorello, E., (Rerum italicarum scriptores, ser. 2, xii, pt. 1), 249Google Scholar; Abulafia, Two Italies, 141–2.

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71 Kinnamos, 280–2.

72 Abulafia, ‘Dalmatian Ragusa’, 419–22, for a possible explanation. Lilie, 493–4, disagrees, but fails to see the full point.

73 Abulafia, Two Italies, 142–4, which fails, however, to take into account the complication of Venetian involvement against Ancona.

74 Abulafia, Two Italies, 144, 147–9.

75 Buoncompagno, 14; for the earlier history of the ship see Zimolo's remarks, ibid., 15 n, and R. Heynen, Zur Entstehung des Kapitalismus in Venedig (Stuttgart, 1905).

76 Ferluga, ‘La Dalmazia fra Bisanzio’, p. 71/201; cf. Ferluga, Amministrazione bizantino, passim, where too little emphasis is placed on the Byzantine view that the Venetians were (technically) δοῦλοι of the empire. Venetian rights over Dalmatia were first enforced at the start of the eleventh century, and were given more detailed recognition in the chrysobull of 1082/4, for which see Brown, ‘Venetians’, 70.

77 Ferluga, Amministrazione, 250; cf. 270 n.

78 Ferluga, ‘La Dalmazia fra Bisanzio’, p. 73/203; cf. Guldescu, S., History of medieval Croatia (The Hague, 1964), 190–1, 246Google Scholar.

79 Abulafia, Two Italies, 83 n. 62.

80 Ferluga, ‘La Dalmazia fra Bisanzio’, pp. 66–8/196–8; 74–5/204–5.

81 Ferluga, ‘La Dalmazia fra Bisanzio’, pp. 75–6/205–6. Guarnieri, ‘Intorno alle relazioni’ prints a document of 1169 which mentions ‘Johanne comite Spalati’ (p. 360); presumably, as in Dubrovnik, a count of local origin controlled internal affairs—cf. Abulafia, ‘Dalmatian Ragusa’, 423–5.

82 Schreiner, ‘Dux von Dalmatien’, 286–7; Carile, ‘L'assedio’, 46–7; Ferluga, ‘La Dalmazia fra Bisanzio’, p. 77/207; for the obituary notice see: de Montfaucon, B., Palaeographia graeca (Paris, 1708), 47Google Scholar; and compare the entry in Polemis, D. I., The Doukai: a contribution to Byzantine prosopography, (London, 1968), §222, p. 191Google Scholar.

83 Montfaucon, 47 and Schreiner, 286–7. According to the necrology, he was named of all . For the significance of these references to Dioclea, Dalmatia, Croatia, Albania and Split, see Ferluga, Amministrazione, 262; ‘La Dalmazia fra Bisanzio’, p. 77/207.

84 Annales Pisani, 59; Buoncompagno, 34.

85 Buoncompagno, 35–9.

86 Buoncompagno, 35.

87 Buoncompagno, 37.

88 Cf. Kinnamos, 170.

89 Buoncompagno, 18.

90 La Dalmazia fra Bisanzio', p. 83/213, n. 92.

91 Buoncompagno, 10.

92 Sudendorf, ii. 132: ‘exivit ad nos cum omnibus soldariis suis’.

93 Eustathios, 112; Lamma, ‘Aldruda’, 389, n. 1.

94 Ferluga, J., ‘La Ligesse dans l'empire byzantin: contribution à l'étude de la féodalité à Byzance’, Recueil des travaux de l'Institut d'Etudes byzantines, vii (Belgrade, 1961), 97124Google Scholar; repr. in Byzantium and the Balkans, cit., 399–425; see p. 120/422 for an example of a Genoese λιξίος of Manuel Komnenos; among the Genoese, it might be argued, individual acts of homage to the Basileus took the place of the communal subjection to which (at least in the 1080s) the Venetians were liable, as δουλοῖ of the emperor. Similarly, see Leonhard, Seestadt Ancona, 58–63, 79–81.

95 Zadar had been ‘capital’ of Byzantine Dalmatia in earlier centuries: Ferluga, ‘Bisanzio e Zara’, 189; for the use of Split by Constantine Doukas, see Smičiklas, T., Codex diplomaticus regni Croatiae, Dalmatiae et Slavoniae, ii, Diplomatica saeculi XIIcontinentes (1101–1200), (Zagreb, 1904), 130–1Google Scholar; Ferluga, ‘La Dalmazia fra Bisanzio’, p. 76–206. Buerger, Janet E., ‘Late medieval glazed pottery in Italy and surrounding areas: with specific detail from the excavations in the cathedral in Florence and in Diocletian's Palace in Split’, Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1978Google Scholar (repr. by University Microfilms, Ltd.), attributes some pottery finds, Byzantine in character, to the period of Byzantine rule in Split: pp. 109, 165–6. However, Dr David Whitehouse informs me that the attribution of these pieces is still doubtful.

96 Cf. Schreiner, 303.

97 Romuald of Salerno, 265.

98 Buoncompagno, 29–30; cf. Sudendorf, ii. 131–2.

99 Buoncompagno, 42: ‘originem contraxerat in Urbe de nobile prosapia Fraiapanum.’ Theiner, A., Codex diplomaticus dominii temporalis S. Sedis (Rome, 1861), i. 1314Google Scholar, § xv (1144), for Aldruda's estates; for her ancestry in the powerful Roman family of Frangipane, see Carile, ‘L'assedio’, 48–9; in 1170 Otto Frangipane married a niece of Manuel Komnenos at Veroli, in the presence of Pope Alexander III—this niece, Eudochia, conceded lands to Alexander III (Archivio Segreto Vaticano, A. A. Arm. I–xviii, § 3672). Aldruda's adhesion to the anti-German, pro-Greek party is therefore no surprise.

100 Eustathios, 113–4; Lamma, ‘Aldruda’, 392.

101 Buoncompagno, 46–7.

102 Discussion by Zimolo, in Buoncompagno, 47 n.

103 Buoncompagno, 46.

104 Compare Zimolo in Buoncompagno, 47 n., and Ferluga, ‘Ligesse’, cit.

105 Niketas Choniates, 202.

106 Ferluga, ‘La Dalmatia fra Bisanzio’, p. 79/209, for references to ‘Rogerio Slauoni’, ‘Rogerius Slavone dei et imperiali gracia Dalmatie et Chroatie ducas’; there is little doubt that this is the Roger Slavus who rebelled against the authority of the King of Sicily (his relative) in 1161 and was exiled soon after—Ferluga, ‘Ligesse’, 118 (and 420), Chalandon, ii. 280, 283–5. For his earlier career: Abulafia, David, ‘The Crown and the Economy under Roger II and his successors’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, xxxvii (1983), 13Google Scholar.

107 Abulafia, ‘Dalmatian Ragusa’, 423.

108 Buoncompagno does not mention Byzantine links with Ancona in his discussion of later assaults on Ancona: see especially p. 50.

109 Smičiklas, ii. 130–1, 138.

110 For the buildings, see Giangiacomi, Ancona, 386–7, where the portico of S. Maria is described as ‘facciata romanico-bizantina’.

111 Buoncompagno, 34, implies that Ancona was a ‘feudum’ of Manuel Komnenos, but he introduces the link between Ancona and Constantinople in an oblique way—his prime aim is to introduce Constantine Doukas, and place some fine words in his mouth. In the nineteenth century the siege of Ancona (then dated to 1174 rather than 1173) was the subject of a number of romantic works: Cannonieri, G., L'assedio di Ancona dell'anno 1174 per Cristiano arcivescovo di Magonza, luogotenente di Barbarossa (Florence, 1848Google Scholar), has what purports to be a ‘Conclusione Storica’ by F. Soragni (pp. 225–40); cf. Giangiacomi, 396 and 403–4 for a similar work. Cannonieri's work reads as a bad pastiche of Manzoni; its fantastic tale of Guglielmo Gosia and his beloved Virginia is, alas, without any historical foundation.

112 My thanks are due to the Faculty of Archaeology, History and Letters of the British School at Rome for a grant in aid of research, which enabled me to make extensive use of the Vatican Library (and Archives) and the library of the German Historical Institute in Rome, as well as to visit Ancona.