Godfrey of Viterbo

GODFREY OF VITERBO. - Chronicler, b. at Viterbo ca. 1120, perhaps of a Saxon family; he was taken to Germany by Lothair in 1133, where, at the school of Bamberg, he received a good cultural education. Made chaplain and notary at the court of Conrad III, he served faithfully both him and his successors Frederick I and Henry VI, often associated with them in their expeditions: he says he was twice in Sicily, three times in Provence, once in Spain, often in France, and that he made the journey from Germany to Rome forty times. He also had various diplomatic assignments.

Of his historical writings, largely poetic, he dedicated some to the young Henry VI, whose tutor he was and whom he perhaps survived. He wrote a Speculum regum (1180) in verse, which embraces history from the Flood to Pepin; Gesta Friderici, also in verse (1181), later absorbed into the Memoria saeculorum (ca. 1185), partly metrical and partly in prose. His major work is the Pantheon, modeled in large part on the chronicle of Otto of Freising. The historical value of his narratives of events of which he was not a witness is very slight, while their literary value is not negligible.

Alberto Ghinato