GUGLIELMO da VERCELLI - The Saint in prayer: in the background, the convent of Montevergine. Print of 1581.
judgments, especially in relations with the Byzantine Empire, unwilling to take up the fantastic elements of the first writers on the Crusade, he also refrains from the fanaticism of other writers. His historical view of the Crusades is a synthesis that long prevailed until the critical revision of the 19th century. G. writes with refinement, even with elegance: he may be called one of the best medieval historians. Another work on the history of the Eastern princes, in which he perhaps drew upon Arab historians, has not survived; it was, however, used by Guglielmo di Tripoli and Giacomo di Vitry.
BIBL.: Besides in PL 201, the historical work of G. is published in the Recueil des historiens des Croisades. Hist. Occidentaux, I. Parigi 1844, II, there 1859, pp. 489-639; followed by a chronological analysis of G. and his continuators, pp. 641-731, edited by A. A. Beugnot, though it is not an entirely satisfactory edition. On G., V. H. Prutz, Studien über W. V. Tyros, in Neues Archiv, 8 (1883), pp. 93-132; id., Kulturgeschichte der Kreuzzüge, Berlino 1883; Manitius, III, pp. 430-39; A. C. Krey, William of Tire. The making of an historian in mediocr. age, in Speculum, 16 (1941), pp. 149-66. Francesco Cognasso