PIER DELLE VIGNE (de Vineis). - Famous minister of Frederick, born, it seems, at Capua around 1190, if it is true that he was about sixty years old at the time of his political disgrace. From his letters it emerges that the family was of modest condition, but his father, Angelo, was already a judge at Capua. According to a statement by the astrologer Guido Bonetti, it seems that P. studied law at Bologna, but from his letters it emerges only that he studied under Giacomo di Amalfi, bishop of Patti and archbishop of Capua.
According to Enrico di Isernia, P. was presented to Frederick II by Bernardo, archbishop of Palermo, which may have happened in Dec. 1220 when the Emperor was at 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 as «familiaris domini», that is, intimate counsellor of the Emperor. In 1230 he had taken part in the negotiations for the peace of S. Germano and accompanied Frederick II to Ceprano for the final agreements. The following year he took part in the work of drafting the Constitutions of Melfi: an ancient tradition even attributes their principal merit to him, but today it is thought that P. was only a collaborator of Giacomo di Amalfi, to whom indeed Gregory IX's reproaches for those Constitutions were directed. In 1231 he was repeatedly ambassador of Frederick II to the Pope, though alongside a high ecclesiastical dignitary who therefore had the direction of the mission, while the actual conduct of business fell to P. In 1234 P. was in England for the negotiations of Frederick's marriage to Isabella Plantagenet, and on 22 Nov. 1234 he gave the ring to the bride at Westminster, as the Emperor's procurator. In 1235 he is at Frederick's side in Germany, and from there he is sent to Italy to negotiate with the imperialist Communes and took an important part in the Congress of Piacenza. A trusted confidant of the Emperor, in 1237 he goes with Hermann von Salza to the Pope, then to Mantua with Taddeo di Sessa to negotiate with the papal Legates. After Cortenuova (1237) he follows Frederick II into Piedmont, then to the siege of Brescia and to Padua where, on the occasion of Gregory IX's new excommunication of Frederick, he speaks to the people in defence of the Emperor.
Later he takes part in the negotiations with the Sacred College and with Innocent IV: in 1244 at Rome with Taddeo di Sessa he swears to the terms of the agreement which Frederick II then did not ratify. He then stayed in the Emperor's retinue at Foggia, at Verona, at Turin, and from there went as ambassador to Louis IX of France to obtain his mediation in the conflict with the Pope. In 1247 he is again at Turin with Frederick II for an agreement attempted through the count of Savoy; he then follows the Emperor to the siege of Parma.
In Jan. 1249 he was with Frederick II at Cremona when he suddenly lost the imperial favour. The reason is unknown. It was thought that he was suspected or accused of connivance with Innocent IV, or that the policy he pursued ultimately provoked Frederick's wrath, or that courtiers and rivals accused him of conspiracy against the Emperor. Frederick II, alluding 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 was perhaps only the pretext for striking down the former favourite. Frederick accuses him of having wanted to poison him: the very well-informed English chronicler Matthew Paris takes up this accusation; Dante, on the other hand, makes P. the victim of the calumnies 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 chronicler of Piacenza has him die in prison as a consequence of the barbarous execution; Matthew Paris and Dante (Inf., XIII) take up the report of suicide (Apr. 1249).
It seems that P. had a wife and children; the reports of his literary activity still merit careful critical examination: in his epistolary one must distinguish his letters 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 some political compositions in the vernacular.
Bibliography2 works
Francesco Cognasso