Federico (31 dic 899 anni – 23 feb 922 anni)

Descrizione:

The date of birth of this patriarch of Aquileia is unknown, as well as his origins, which an unreliable tradition links to Charles the Bald. Success to Patriarch Gualperto, the first document concerning him is a diploma from the King of Italy Berengario issued by Trieste on 10 November. 900. Berengario had then taken refuge in the Friulian March following the difficult situation created after his defeat on the Brenta in 899 by the Hungarians and after the uprising of some great figures of the Kingdom, which in October of the following year had allowed the coronation in Pavia of Louis III of Provence as king of Italy. A month after this event, the diploma for F. fell, the first of four received (a fifth has perhaps been lost),

Thanks to this privileged bond, F., who in the last diploma of 921 is precisely qualified "fidelissimus", was able to take advantage of substantial concessions of fiscal assets and rights of a public nature: in 900, at his request, he obtained the lower course of the Natissa river up to the outlet into the sea, with all the rights inherent to it, including the right of placito. Three years later he was awarded two diplomas, both received in fifteenth-century copies with minimal variations (such as to make Schiaparelli suspect some forgery) which granted F. a house in Cividale and other assets belonging to private individuals located in Cormons, to "Obescobatis" and in the Cividale committee, subsequently merged, for unknown reasons, into the Royal Tax Office. To them was added the door of S. Pietro di Cividale,

Mor, in emphasizing the fortifying elements of this gate, believed that with it the commitment to the defense of the city (then the seat of residence of the Aquileian patriarchs) and, with this, most of the prerogatives and committees competences; according to Schmidinger, the "gate" would have an exclusively topographical value and would correspond to the urban area that led to the gate; more recently, however, the Cammarosano has interpreted it as the complex of taxes on goods introduced into the city, therefore as a typically sovereign fiscal right.

The two diplomas were completed by the confirmation of the goods already granted in the past to the Church of Aquileia but which had been lost, either because it was destroyed by fire or because of the persecutions of the "pagans", the attestation of possession. The mention here made to the Hungarians refers to the raids which, starting from 899-900, had devastated northern Italy and above all the eastern border area, the Friulian March.

It was probably at that juncture that F. actively participated in the defense of the territory and, according to his epitaph, with full success: "Ungarorum rabieni magno moderamine pressit / Fecit et Hesperiam pacem habere bonam", says one of the slightly different but univocal versions in meaning. On the basis of the same epitaph, indeed, Arnaldi hypothesizes that F. himself was the mediator of the truce that Berengar reached with the Hungarians, who since then became his allies but no less dangerous also for his faithful. In 921 Berengario, in the meantime crowned emperor, gave F. the castle of Pozzuolo with all the jurisdictional rights inherent to it within a mile. F. was thus conferred the powers previously vested in the count's authority, a '

It was precisely starting from the government of F. that the Aquileian patriarchs found themselves filling the vacuum of power deriving from the limited presence and the scarce rooting of public officials of the Friulian March, being the only emerging force able to combine land presence, continuity institutional and stable public functions, in a situation that nevertheless remained disintegrated, if we consider the concessions of fragmentary jurisdictional, military, or fiscal rights to other fidelesclergymen of the region. With F. the political-military features of the Aquileian patriarchs were accentuated, and the news of the doge-chronicler Andrea Dandolo also refers to his initiatives in the field of war, according to which in 921 F., together with the Carinthian duke and another duke unspecified, he unsuccessfully opposed a Hungarian raid in Carinthia (southern Carantania, up to the Drava, was in fact part of the diocese of Aquileia), escaping death only by fleeing.

F. died shortly after these events, probably on 23 February. 922.

Aggiunto al nastro di tempo:

Data: