Baudolino by Umberto Eco Read Free Book Online

difference—nor did I in those days—but at court they were all glowering. I was expecting Frederick, too, to be mad as a bull, but instead he was all deference towards the pope, while the pope's face was grim, as if he had sealed a bad bargain. I asked Frederick straight out why the barons grumbled and he didn't,
and he told me I had to understand the value of liturgical symbols, where a mere nothing can change everything. He needed to have a coronation, and it had to be complete with the pope, but it shouldn't be too solemn, otherwise it would mean he was emperor only thanks to the pope, whereas he was already emperor by the will of the Germanic princes. I told him he was sly as a weasel, because it was as if he had said: See here, Pope, you're merely the notary, but I've already signed papers with the Almighty. He burst out laughing and slapped my head, saying smart boy, you always find the right way to express things. Then he asked me what I had been doing in Rome those days, because he had been so taken up with the ceremonies he'd lost sight of me. I saw the ceremonies you were taken up with, I said. The fact is that the Romans—the Romans of Rome, that is—didn't like that business of the coronation in Saint Peter's, because the Roman senate wanted to be more important than the pope, and they wanted to crown Frederick on the Capitoline. He refused, because if he then went around saying he had been crowned by the people, not only the Germanic princes but also the kings of France and England would say: Fine anointment this, by the holy rabble. Whereas if he could say he was anointed by the pope, they would all take him seriously. But the matter was even more complicated, and I realized that only later. For some time the Germanic princes had been talking about the
translatio imperii,
which was like saying that the hereditary line of the Roman emperors had passed to them. Now if Frederick had himself crowned by the pope it was like saying that his right was recognized also by the vicar of Christ on earth, and he would be what he was even if he lived, so to speak, in Edessa or Ratisbon. If he had himself crowned by the senate and by the Roman
populusque,
it was like saying the empire was still there, without any
translatio.
Smart thinking, as my father Gagliaudo used to say. At that point, surely, the emperor wasn't going to put up with it. That's why, as the great coronation banquet was taking place, the Romans in a fury crossed the Tiber and killed not only a few priests, which was everyday stuff, but also two
or three imperials. Frederick flew into a rage, interrupted the banquet, and had them all killed then and there, after which there were more corpses than fish in the Tiber, and by nightfall the Romans understood who was master. To be sure, as festivities go, it wasn't a great festivity. This was what caused Frederick's bad humor towards those communes of
Italia citeriore,
and that's why when he arrived before Spoleto at the end of July, he demanded they pay for his sojourn there, and the Spoletini made a fuss. Frederick got even madder than he had in Rome, and carried out a massacre that makes this one in Constantinople seem like child's play.... You have to understand, Master Niketas, an emperor has to act like an emperor and forget about feelings.... I learned many things in those months; after Spoleto there was the meeting with the envoys of Byzantium at Ancona, then the return to ulterior Italy, to the foot of the Alps, which Otto called the Pyrenees, and that was the first time I saw the tops of mountains covered with snow. Meanwhile, day after day, Canon Rahewin introduced me to the art of writing."
    "A hard introduction, for a boy."
    "No, not hard. It's true that, if I didn't understand something, Canon Rahewin would hit my head with his fist, but that had no effect on me, not after the blows of my father. For the rest, everyone hung on my lips. If I felt like saying I had seen a sea