Frugoni, Arnaud de Brescia.

The French public, in opening this book, will meet two remarkable Italians: an author and his character, the medievalist Arsenio Frugoni (1914-1970) and the twelfth-century reformer, Arnaud of Brescia. According to a famous dictionary, Arnaud "in 1140 raised the Romans, drove out Pope Eugene III and set about restoring the Roman Republic. He held power for ten years, then was defeated by Frederick Barbarossa and burned on his orders. Alas, almost everything about this legend, which has been peddled for centuries, is false, and Arsenio Frugoni shatters this myth by showing that Arnaud was fundamentally an austere and passionate religious reformer who met the Roman revolution more than he inspired it. But the manner is as important as the conclusion. For, with a strong and often malicious erudition, Frugoni follows a surprising method. Since the sources are poor and patchy, instead of combining them to achieve plausibility, Frugoni digs out the differences by treating the sources separately, as biased, partial and partial versions. This historical Rashomon not only reveals the true figure of Arnaud, but also teaches us how history is written, in the Middle Ages and today. There is no relativism in this lesson: the true can be glimpsed if we dispel the mists of verisimilitude.