Pier delle Vigne (de Vineis) - Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. IX, p. 834

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

PIER DELLE VIGNE (de Vineis). — Famous minister of Federico, born, apparently, in Capua around 1190, if it is true that he was about sixty years old at the time of his political downfall. It emerges from his letters that the family was of modest status, but his father, Angelo, was already a judge in Capua. According to a statement by the astrologer Guido Bonetti, it seems that P. studied law at Bologna, but his letters establish only that he studied under Giacomo di Amalfi, bishop of Patti and archbishop of Capua.

According to Enrico di Isernia, P. was presented to Federico II by Bernardo, archbishop of Palermo, which may have occurred in Dec. 1220, when the Emperor was in Capua. In 1225 P. appears with the title «magnae curiae iudex»; after 1245 he was imperial protonotary and logothete. From 1238 to 1247 he is designated «familiaris domini», that is, the Emperor’s intimate counsellor. In 1230 he had taken part in the negotiations for the Peace of S. Germano and accompanied Federico II to Ceprano for the final agreements. The following year he participated in the drafting of the Constitutions of Melfi: indeed, an ancient tradition attributes their principal merit to him, but today it is thought that P. was merely a collaborator of Giacomo di Amalfi, who in fact incurred the reproaches of Gregorio IX for those Constitutions. In 1231 P. was repeatedly Federico II’s ambassador to the Pope, though always alongside a high ecclesiastical dignitary who consequently directed him, while P. handled the actual conduct of affairs. In 1234 P. was in England for the negotiations concerning Federico’s marriage to Isabella Plantageneta, and on 22 Nov. 1234 he gave the bride the ring at Westminster as the Emperor’s procurator. In 1235 he was at Federico’s side in Germany and from there was sent to Italy to negotiate with the imperialist Communes; he played an important part in the Conference of Piacenza. The Emperor’s trusted confidant, in 1237 he went with Hermann von Salza to the Pope, and then to Mantua with Taddeo di Sessa to negotiate with the papal Legates. After Cortenuova (1237) he followed Federico II into Piedmont, then to the area beneath Brescia and to Padua, where, on the occasion of Gregorio IX’s renewed excommunication of Federico, he addressed the people in defence of the Emperor.

Later he took part in the negotiations with the S. Collegio and with Innocenzo IV: in 1244, in Rome, together with Taddeo di Sessa, he swore to the terms of the agreement, which Federico II subsequently failed to ratify. He then remained in the Emperor’s retinue at Foggia, Verona, and Turin, and from there went as ambassador to Luigi IX of France to seek his mediation in the conflict with the Pope. In 1247 he was again at Turin with Federico II for an agreement attempted through the count of Savoy; he then followed the Emperor to the siege of Parma.

In Jan. 1249 he was with Federico II at Cremona when he suddenly lost imperial favour. The reason is unknown. It was thought that he had come under suspicion or been accused of collusion with Innocenzo IV, or that the policy he had pursued had finally provoked Federico’s anger, or that courtiers and rivals had accused him of conspiring against the Emperor. Federico II, referring to P., says: «Pravæ suggestionis et scandali multiformis Petri videlicet, Symonia alterius, proditoris, qui ut haberet loculos vel impleret, equitatis virgam vertebat in colubrum». But the accusation of corruption and venality may have been merely a pretext for striking at the former favourite. Federico accused him of having attempted to poison him: the exceptionally well-informed English chronicler Matteo Paris repeats this accusation; Dante, on the other hand, makes P. the victim of the slanders of envious courtiers. Arrested at Cremona in Feb. 1249, transferred to Borgo Donnini, P. was then led in chains behind the Emperor as he moved to S. Miniato, where he was tried and condemned to blinding. A Piacenzan chronicler has him dying in prison as a consequence of the barbarous execution; Matteo Paris and Dante (Inf., XIII) record the report of his suicide (Apr. 1249).

P. appears to have had a wife and children; the information concerning his literary activity still deserves careful critical examination: in his correspondence, his own letters must be distinguished from those not his; there are political speeches, a short political treatise, a Latin poem on the months of the year, a satire in monorhymed quatrains against the clergy, and several political compositions in the vernacular.

BIBL.: for P.’s letters, v.: Petri de Vines, Epistolarum libri VII, ed. Iselius, 2 vols., Basel 1750, 1782. Important but not exhaustive studies are those of G. de Blasiis, Della vita e delle opere di P., Naples 1860; and of Huillard Bréholles, Vie et correspondance de Pierre de la Vigne, Paris 1864. V. moreover A. Del Vecchio, La legislazione di Federico II illustrata, Turin 1874. V. Grise, Die Publizistik im letzten Kämpfe zwischen Friedrich II. und Papst Gregor IX., Heidelberg 1900. V. BIBLICA. of FEDERICO II. Francesco Cognasso