Radoaldo (dec 13, 963 – jan 1, 984)

Description:

A belated chronicle of the patriarchs of Aquileia defines Radoaldo, or Rodoaldo, nobilis genus et nobilior mente (De Rubeis, 1740, col. 467), but the family of origin is unknown (Dopsch, 2000, pp. 289 s.), as well as the time of his birth.

The first news concerning him appears to be dated to November-December 963. During the Roman Synod convened by Otto I to depose Pope John XII, the patriarch of Aquileia Engelfredo died suddenly and the deacon Rodalfus signed the acts in his stead. The news is due to Liutprando da Cremona ( Liudprandi work , edited by J. Becker, 1915, pp. 164 ff.) And Gerhard Schwartz (1913, identified the deacon Rodalfus with Radoaldo. Beyond any doubt, Radoaldo was elected patriarch of Aquileia in these circumstances and at the behest of Otto I. Leo VIII, who had just been consecrated as pontiff, granted him the pallium on 13 December.

The documentation relating to the patriarchate of Radoaldo, which lasted for about twenty years, is insufficient to trace an exhaustive biography, even if it allows us to glimpse some salient data.

The first is the constant loyalty to Otto I and Otto II, to which we must add the extensive relations intertwined with the imperial nobility, particularly in the Veronese-Aquileian region, as well as in Bavaria and Carinthia.

The fruits of these bonds were numerous. For example, in 964, Otto I, qualifying the prelate as noster precipuus fidelis , rewarded him with the donation of some goods located in the surroundings of Cormons, now in the province of Gorizia. Liutprand of Cremona (967), Theodoric bishop of Metz (972), a relative of the emperor, and later the empress Theophanes herself (981) also intercedes with the sovereigns in favor of Radoaldo.

These are feeble lights, but which probably illuminate exchanges of mutual interest. For example, the intercession of Liutprando da Cremona is perhaps explained in relation to the use, granted by Radoaldo, of some properties of the Aquileian patriarchate lying between the Adda and Oglio (Paschini, 1975 3 , p. 200).

Loyalty to the Saxons and the ability to weave high-level alliances meant for Radoaldo the opportunity to accelerate the process of stately constitution of the patriarchate, which then acquired a strong military and political physiognomy, and to affirm its metropolitan and honorary prerogatives in the number of churches in northern Italy. Revealing of these processes are the imperial precepts of 967 (concession of the abbey of S. Maria di Sesto and other assets in the Friuli and Veneto Lowerlands), of 972 (confirmation of donations and imperial immunities, including the episcopate of Concordia and the abbey of Sesto) and of 983 (concession of the castles of Fagagna, Gruagno, Udine, Buja and Braitan, with the respective district, to protect the hilly hinge of Friuli).

On the ecclesiastical side, the interpolation of the document with which Leo VIII granted Radoaldo the pallium is symptomatic: the presumed Petrine privilege of being the second western seat after Rome was confirmed in Aquileia. The tampering was almost certainly desired either by Radoaldo or by his successor Giovanni in relation to the long-standing jurisdictional conflicts with the nearby patriarchal see of Grado (Cammarosano, 1988, p. 77), but also to regulate the precedence of honor with the archbishops of Milan and Ravenna, according to dynamics that can also be understood from the signatures to conciliar and synodal acts (Paschini, 19753, p. 197).

He died between 983 and 984 and was buried in the cathedral of Cividale del Friuli.

His funeral eulogy, carved on the tombstone now dispersed but still partially legible in the sixteenth century, generically mentions his virtues, but also the care for the Cividale rectory and to honor the relics of the martyrs. Still small hints of a much more multifaceted and complex personality than that emerging from the few surviving sources, but which hint at a very active pontificate, both in terms of the growth of patriarchal power and on that of pastoral concern.

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