The Man Who Believed He Was King of France: A True Medieval Tale

234 Pages·2008·1.12 MB·English

by  Tommaso di Carpegna Falconieri

the man who believed he
was king of france
(cid:2)(cid:2) tommaso di carpegna falconieri
translated by william mccuaig
The Man Who Believed
He Was King of
France
A True Medieval Tale
the university of chicago press Chicago & London
tommaso di carpegna falconieri
is director of studies in medieval history at the University of Urbino and head of
courses in methodology of historical research and the history of the Middle Ages.
His publications include, most recently, Il clero di Roma nel medioevo: Istituzioni e
politica cittadina (secoli VIII– XIII) (2002) and Cola di Rienzo (2002).
william mccuaig
has translated more than a dozen books from Italian and French, most recently What’s the
Use of Truth? (2007) by Pascal Engel and Richard Rorty, and A Day in a Medieval City (2005),
by Chiara Frugoni, the latter published by the University of Chicago Press.
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2008 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. Published 2008
Printed in the United States of America
Originally published as L’uomo che si credeva re di Francia: Una storia
medievale. Copyright © 2005, Gius. Laterza & Figli. All rights reserved.
Illustration on p. i: reproduction of the coat of arms of “King” Giannino.
Map of Europe and genealogical charts prepared by Dick Gilbreath at the Gyula Pauer
Center for Cartography & GIS at the University of Kentucky, Lexington.
17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 1 2 3 4 5
ISBN-1 3: 978-0-226-14525-9 (cloth)
ISBN-1 0: 0-226-14525-5 (cloth)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Di Carpegna Falconieri, Tommaso.
[Uomo che si credeva re di Francia. English]
The man who believed he was king of France : a true medieval tale / Tommaso di Carpegna
Falconieri ; translated by William McCuaig.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-226-14525-9 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-226-14525-5 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Europe—Kings and rulers—History. 2. Europe—
History—476–1492. 3. Imposters and imposture—Europe. I. Title.
D107.D5213 2005
944(cid:2).024092—dc22
[B]
2008020061
o The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National
Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI
Z39.48-1992.
To Father, dedicated to the study of language
To Mother, who loves history and fairytale

contents
(cid:3)(cid:4)(cid:5)
Preface (2005) ix
Preface to the American Edition (2008) xi
Translator’s Note xi
Map of Europe in 1360 2
1 at rome 3
Chapter .
2 at siena 25
Chapter .
3 in the east 49
Chapter .
4 in the west 67
Chapter .
5 in prison 93
Chapter .
6 giannino in history, legend, and
Chapter .
literature 119

1 the direct capetian line 159
Appendix :
2 the angevins of naples and hungary 161
Appendix :
Notes 163
Bibliography 199
Index 213

preface
2005
( )
(cid:3)(cid:4)(cid:5)
I encountered Giannino (his name is actually a diminutive of Gio-
vanni) for the fi rst time in a codex in the Vatican Library while I was
trawling through works that had nothing to do with him. He then
turned up in a manuscript in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris,
while I was researching the life of the Roman tribune Cola di Rienzo.
Something drew me to Giannino, and I promised myself that one day
I would explore his story.
The merchant from Siena who believed that he was the king
of France was a man of the fourteenth century, a small man full of
intrigue and stubbornness, but also an ingenuous man, fi rmly con-
vinced of the rightfulness of his claim, for which he abandoned a life
of ease and security and threw himself into a crazy adventure in vari-
ous parts of Europe. He wandered among the courts of the princes
of Christendom, and sometimes got thrown into their prisons, and
everywhere he went—Italy, Hungary, France—he met lords and sol-
diers, innkeepers and merchants, clerics and confi dence men of many
nationalities, with all of whom he entered into a complex web of rela-
tionships. This alone would have made him worth rediscovering.
Giannino’s story is so absurd that it has been considered a literary
invention, like the Novella del Grasso legnajuolo (The Tale of Grasso
the Woodworker) or Pirandello’s Enrico IV. Nevertheless, just as it
is certain that Giannino was not the king of France (because, apart
from anything else, he never succeeded in becoming so), it is likewise
certain that a Sienese merchant who claimed the Capetian crown for
himself really did exist.
The sources available to us for reconstructing his strange career
are atypical, and they have come down to us through complex chan-
nels of manuscript tradition and erudite interpretation. For this rea-
(cid:6) ix