Günther (Ligurinus) of Pairis (GÜNTHER (LIGURINUS) DI PAIRIS)

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

GÜNTHER (Ligurinus) di PAIRIS. — Cistercian monk, poet, and historian, b. toward the end of the 12th century, d. in the Alsatian monastery of his Order at Pairis ca. 1220. His exquisite classical culture earned him the appointment as tutor to Prince Corrado, the fourth son of Emperor Federico I.

Between 1180 and 1186 he composed the poem Solimanus, which celebrates the First Crusade and the liberation of Jerusalem (or So-lima, whence the name of the poem) and which he dedicated to the prince, his pupil (cf. Ligurinus, X, V. 649), using as his source Roberto di Reims’s Historia Hierosolimitana. Between 1186 and 1187 he composed a second poem of 6,526 verses: Ligurinus, which celebrates the struggles of Federico I in Italy, drawing on the work of Ottone di Frisinga and Rahewin (Gesta Federici), and dedicated it to the Emperor. The title Ligurinus derives from the name Ligures, by which the author designates the Lombards, against whom Federico fought. Having become a monk at Pairis ca. 1200, he composed, from information supplied by his abbot, Martino, who had taken part in it, the Historia captae a Latinis anno 1204 Constantinopoleos. Also his is a treatise: De oratione, ieiunio et eleemosyna.

BIBL.: Works: PL 212, 95-476. — Studies: Manitius, III, pp. 698-701. On the question of whether the Ligurinus, although citing the Solimanus several times as the work of the same author, is to be attributed to G. di P., cf. J. Schwarz, Der Ligurinus, Freiburg im Br. 1911; J. Sturm, Der Ligurinus, ibid. 1911; O. Drinkwelder, Ist G. von P. der Verfasser des Ligurinus?, in Studien u. Altteil. zur Gesch. des Benedikt. Ordens u. seiner Zweige, 35 (1914), pp. 671-83; E. Ottmar, Das Carmen de Friderico I... u. seine Beziehungen zu Günther's Ligurinus, in Neues Archiv, 46 (1926), pp. 463-72. Celestino Testore