From Norman to Hohenstaufen rule of Sicily : the representation of Matthew of Ajello in the Liber ad honorem Augusti and the church of La Magione in Palermo

Abstract

Responding after the Third Crusade to the change in rule from Norman to Hohenstaufen, Sicilian visual culture underwent a significant shift. In Peter of Eboli's Liber ad honorem Augusti sive de rebus Siculis (ca 1196), the Norman king Tancred of Lecce's powerful chancellor Matthew of Ajello, who opposed the German emperor Henry VI's claim to the Sicilian throne, is depicted as a bigamist priest. Matthew's favored foundation, Palermo's church of SS. Trinità del Cancelliere, included in its interior monumental epigraphy in Arabic. In 1197, the site – by then a Cistercian monastery – was transferred by the emperor to the Order of the House of St Mary of the Germans in Jerusalem, who were closely associated with the Hohenstaufens. Then known as "La Magione", the site became their base in the former Norman capital. The strategy of displaying Matthew of Ajello, a major figure of the previous regime, as a non-Christian "other" in the Hohenstaufen Liber ad honorem Augusti is elucidated against Henry VI's preparations to depart for the Holy Land.