GUARNA, Romualdo
by Max Oldoni
He was born into a noble family of Salerno in the first quarter of the 12th century. G. participated in the most flourishing period of the
Medical School of Salerno, he was a doctor himself and later, having become a priest, he went through the cursushonorum until he became
archbishop of the city in 1153, succeeding the pro-Norman Guglielmo di Capua. The pulpit from which G. preached his doctrine is still
preserved in the cathedral of Salerno.
Romualdo was a protagonist of the peace treaty reached in 1156 in Benevento between William I of Altavilla, King of Sicily,
and Pope Adrian IV. On behalf of the sovereigns William I and William II, he took on various roles that brought him into contact
with the pontiffs Adrian IV and Alexander III and the emperor Frederick I Barbarossa. Romualdo also carried out a mission as
legate of William II during the negotiations that took place in Venice in 1177 between Frederick I, the Municipalities, and Alexander III.
Romualdo died on 1 April 1181.
His work as a writer is all in a Chronicon whose narration, based on a set of sources partly oral, partly documentary, partly historiographical,
all casually used to the point of making their recognition difficult, is inspired by precise political motivations attentive to the facts of the
Kingdom of Sicily and aimed at the role that the Papacy and the Empire played in the affairs of that Kingdom and of the time; Romualdo is
explicit in separating the competences of the Norman monarchy from those of the Empire and the Papacy.
In the critical debate surrounding the editorial structure of the work, it has been hypothesized that Romualdo had compiled a
first draft of the Chronicon in the form of a universal chronicle that reached up to 1125, entrusting a continuation, closer
to the events of southern Italy to an anonymous hand, and then taking up the final part, regarding the account, predominantly
autobiographical, of the mission carried out by Romualdo in his capacity as legate of William II.
The situation of compilation of the Chronicon and the personal position of Romualdo conditioned the choices of his writing,
which cuts out all oral tradition from a large part of the text and is influenced by contingent events. Compared to the reflection
of De bono pacis by Rufino da Sorrento, certainly the most original product of southern culture of the twelfth century,
in which the author outlines the theory of power exercised through the use of peace, the Chronicon of Romualdo (and his co-editor)
appears to be a dated work, ready to sacrifice contemporary orality to create a narrative scheme that guarantees a safe place in
historiographical orthodoxy. Romualdo's tendency towards an autobiographical involvement, however, saves the Chronicon as a work
that is a mimesis of desperation; in it the author, while trusting the most tested chronicler models, seems to be pervaded by
doubts about possible changes and, given that faith in the institutions of the Middle Ages (Church, Empire and monarchy) might
not be enough, goes elsewhere to look for his answers, and finds them far from the malaise of the South.
Following the example of Bede, G. divides the evolution of human history into the six periods of the ages of the world: the first part of the Chronicon thus takes on a didactic and summary aspect. With this section, G. provides, in the medieval Latin literature in Italy, a first example of a universal chronicle so dear to Frankish and Saxon historians since the 11th century. For the years from 893 to 1127, the years of Pope Honorius II (died in 1130), the strictly annalistic editing of the text would instead suggest a writing by several hands where, with G., at least two other scribes intervene, while the archbishop would leave for himself the essentially autobiographical compilation where the characters of Roger II of Sicily and the two William his successors are fixed. Moments that describe G.'s actions through the use of the third person are followed by narrative phases where the author's personal involvement is clearly distinguishable, where the character of his reactions is strong, and where his likes and dislikes reveal his aristocratic origins.
Romauld entrusted his scribes with the drafting of the central parts of the work and returns to personally carry out the narration until 13 September 1179 when either his death or the loss of a notebook of the codex are the reason for the interruption of the Chronicon . The importance assumed by the entrance on the scene of the author, who writes directly after 1177, is justified by the desire to leave a truthful testimony of his legation to Venice on behalf of William II with the meeting he had not only with Frederick Barbarossa, but above all with the entire political society of northern Italy: Romauld is not only a chronicler of things, facts and men of the Mediterranean South, but appears especially happy in the intelligence he demonstrates of all the local and European casuistry at play in the heart of medieval Europe from the Po Valley onwards. The Liber pontificalis does not have first-hand information and on the work of the pontiffs Romauld replaces the editor of the Curia of Rome very well, having the sensitivity to dwell at length on the events of Lombardy and on the phenomenon of the Lombard League, as a new dam, expression of a world that is changing, relating it to the action of a powerful but ambiguous character like the grand chancellor of the Christian Empire of Mainz. If Alexander III and Frederick I Barbarossa are, with the Lombard legates, the great protagonists of this part of the story, it should be noted that here it is Romauld himself who demonstrates his ability to abandon in one fell swoop all the schemes of the historiographical orthodoxy of chronicling and succeeds, instead, in "writing" in the first person. Having freed himself, in short, from the compilation constraints of a now outdated chronicle, Romauld invents, perhaps in the only truly original part of his work, a way of understanding history where the things of the South find in the facts and men of the North a platform for comparison, a broader chessboard of relationships and, therefore, a way of saving the problems of the South from the North.
From 1159 the writing of the Chronicon changes a lot and the autobiographical involvement even reaches levels of self-promotion. But it is not only in this that the change is felt. What is striking is the fall of a whole series of historical, environmental, moral and generally interpretative observations that facilitate the historian Romauld's journey of memory and the reconstruction of the facts. This reconstruction of his passes through some fixed and recurring nodes. At least a dozen times shooting stars or comets cross the sky of the Chronicon : obviously in conjunction with significant episodes or heralds of events, but very frequent between 990 and 1119, including Halley's comet. Famines and earthquakes are less present, but punctually remembered. A strong theme, however, are the portraits that Romauld dedicates to the major lay protagonists of his work, but the closer one gets to his time the more Romauld's portraiture fades into a series of no longer exalted images. As the years passed, the historical medallions disappeared completely and the dispute became entirely pragmatic and political, all revolving around the fundamental figures of Frederick I and Alexander III. Alongside them, the role of Archbishop Guarna. And we come to the personal involvement of the third part of the Chronicon.
As regards the language and style of the Chronicon , one notes the prevalence of direct speech on the occasion of official apostrophes (words of the pontiff, of the representatives of the Municipalities, of the sovereigns or of the ambassadors) according to a sermo sublimis ( genus sublime ), or preferring a sermo humilis ( genus subtile ) for the description of daily events or war events. An overall elegance spread throughout the entire narration accompanied by a perspicuitas that serves as an interpretative engine of the historical data and that has the function of transmitting to the reader a total credibility of the text in which the author finds himself on the same side as the recipient of the story. The autem ei vero punctuate the Latin sentences often inclined to the cursus planus and in any case always sensitive to authentic textual pauses when it comes to inserting exempla of biblical derivation, an accompaniment of almost all the rhetorical interventions put into the mouths of popes or representatives of the Curia.
This rhetoric is supported by other figures: the anastrophe, the anaphora, the gradatio , combined with a rich adjective system for which, however, Romauld uses the most emotional vocabularies of the Norman epic as an example, such as those adopted, a century earlier, in the Gesta Roberti Wiscardi by William of Puglia or by Goffredo Malaterra in the De rebus gestis Rogerii Calabriae et Siciliae comitis. The same thing must be observed for the choice of words whose entirely medieval semantics ( honor , dominus / domnus , tyrannus , decus , pax , dominium , natio , just to name a few) serves to denote concepts with a broader scope and yet synthesized in the use of the single term. From all this emerges a certain courtly tendency in Romauld's prose, which is thus well suited to inserting official documents into the narrative, the Latin of which does not seem to differ greatly from the overall linguistic and prose fabric of the Chronicon .
The feeling of time, of the passing of the seasons, the will to save the honor and freedom of Italy and the dignity of the Roman Church, the anguish, the hardships, the dangers of death, the profession of faith of the Lombards who wanted a glorious death and not a miserable life in slavery, the Venetians, the Cremonese, the nobles, the people of the cities...: Romauld's world unexpectedly teems and the writer reveals a willingness to listen, to the new that previous narratives would never have predicted. The feeling that he is the author only of the last part of the Chronicon becomes stronger here ; however, there is no strong evidence, other than literary and stylistic, to demonstrate this.
This change in Romauld's narrative method implies his authentic participation in the final phase of the drafting, probably excludes his presence in the previous parts and, overall, traces a profound split in the historiographical philosophy of the Chronicon , which can truly be divided into several hands, where at least one of its authors, the most famous, had no qualms about entering the game, testifying that in autobiography historical writing completely renews its approaches.
Although an ideal continuity seems to link the Lombard-Benedictine-Cassinese tradition up to the time of Romauld, in his Chronicon a programme of balanced distance and deliberate detachment from the political storms of the time emerges with the hidden intent of tracing, according to the chronicle scheme inspired by the narratives of universal history, the progress of events no longer measured by the hesitations of the anonymous Chronicon Salernitanum and the HistoriaNormannorum of Amato of Montecassino or, even, in the unpredictable justification of the acts of Gisulfo (II) fixed in a benevolent and improbable composure by the Vitae quattuor priorum abbatum Cavensium of Pietro (II) da Venosa.
The task of Romauld, archbishop and writer, is also manifested in an inexhaustible activity as a canonist which provides Pope Alexander III with the occasion for various decretals. Romauld was perhaps also the author of a Breviarium Salernitanae Ecclesiae , which remained in use until 1586 and which the Church of Salerno still uses today for some of the services of local saints.
Editions of the Chronicon:
- Romualdus Salernitanus, Chronicon , edited by CA Garufi, in Rer. Ital. Script. , 2nd ed ., VII, 1
- Romualdo II Guarna, Chronicon , edited by C. Bonetti, with essays by Romauld Andenna - H. Houben - M. Oldoni, Cava de' Tirreni 2001.
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