BENZONE, bishop of ALBA. – Probably a native of southern Italy, born at the beginning of the 11th century, he was already a bishop in 1959, since he appears among the signatories of the Roman Council of that year. Nothing is known of his youth or of his intellectual and moral formation. It seems that before his episcopal appointment he had been in Germany, since he knew German well and had a profound knowledge of the orientations of imperial policy. During the pontificate of Niccolò II (1059–61) he revealed himself
as the Italian prelate most devoted to the German Empire. Indeed, he played an important role upon the death of Niccolò, when, after Alexander II was elected by the cardinals, the empress regent Agnese set against him the bishop of Parma, Cadalo, under the name of Onorius II. In the autumn of 1061, B. was sent to Rome, where he succeeded in winning almost the entire city to the cause of the antipope; he went to meet him at Sutri in order to introduce him into the city, forcing Alexander to flee. But when Cadalo was expelled through the intervention of Goffredo di Lorena, B. saw all his plans defeated. Despite Germany’s recognition of Alexander, which took place in 1062 at the Council of Augsburg, B. once again attempted to have Cadalo occupy Rome. Having gone to Germany to urge Enrico IV to undertake an expedition against the Normans, he returned to Italy, where he conducted vigorous activity against Alexander and in favour of Enrico. Driven from his diocese around the spring of 1077, he was forced by deprivation and illness to change the direction of his activity. Under the pontificate of Gregorio VII (1073–1085), during the investiture struggle, he openly sided with the Empire, composing a series of sharply polemical writings against the papacy. When Enrico IV came to Italy in 1081, B. was at his side, hoping for better days and believing in the success of imperial policy. The final years of his life are unknown; he certainly died before Enrico’s second expedition in 1090, but it is impossible to establish a precise date.
Involved in the political and religious events of his time, B. left us in the Liber ad Heinricum a curious work of importance for the history of his century. It is not a homogeneous work, but a collection of passages of varying length, in prose and verse, devoted to different figures and linked only by the dominant idea for which B. never ceased to struggle throughout his life. The work probably assumed its definitive form shortly after the death of Gregorio VII, in 1085–86. In it B. displays the most abject servility toward Enrico and the Empire, requesting the reward due to him. In theory, he advocates a Christian Roman Empire under the supreme guidance of the emperor, to whom the Pope and the bishops must submit, while venting all his hatred against Gregorio VII and the Pataria, which constituted the greatest obstacle to the implementation of his theories. Because of the sectarian spirit pervading the entire work, B.’s testimony, although contemporary with the events, can be accepted only with great caution and discernment.