Abstract EN:

This study examines the application of medieval rhetorical theories to defining a language suitable for the solemn expression of political power through the creation, diffusion, and imitation in thirteenth to fifteenth century Europe of Pier della Vigna's Letters, a political-rhetorical summa particularly famous in the Middle Ages. In the first half of the thirteenth century, a new political language was elaborated at the chancellery of the Kingdom of Sicily, governed by the emperor Frederick II (1194-1250), under the direction of Pier della Vigna (?-1249). Later, Pier della Vigna's disciples preserved his heritage by creating a collection of the political letters of Frederick II : Pier della Vigna's Letters. This collection was used by European chancelleries of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The history of Pier della Vigna's Letters makes it possible to retrace the creation of a new language of power influenced on a European scale by Frederick II's imperial ideology.