WEBVTT - Renaissance Man (with Peter Weller) 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:04.600 Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim 0:00:04.640 --> 0:00:10.560 and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised. Hi, this 0:00:10.720 --> 0:00:11.600 is Danish Sports. 0:00:11.640 --> 0:00:13.800 I am so excited to be here today for a 0:00:13.920 --> 0:00:17.200 very special episode of Noble Blood. I'm joined by the 0:00:17.400 --> 0:00:23.800 incredible actor, director, historian writer Peter Weller. Just an incredible figure, 0:00:23.840 --> 0:00:26.920 an incredible life. You've done so much. We're going to 0:00:26.920 --> 0:00:29.480 be talking about the Holy Roman Ember of Frederick the Second, 0:00:29.560 --> 0:00:32.320 but before we dive in, I would just love to ask, 0:00:32.400 --> 0:00:34.760 and I think my listeners would love to know what 0:00:34.840 --> 0:00:37.360 was your transition like going from the acting world in 0:00:37.400 --> 0:00:41.560 Hollywood to going back and studying Italian Renaissance art. 0:00:41.920 --> 0:00:43.760 So I knew nothing about art. My mother tried to 0:00:43.760 --> 0:00:46.360 introduce me to art. You know, I didn't really get it. 0:00:46.680 --> 0:00:49.360 There's a wonderful actress. Most people know it was an 0:00:49.360 --> 0:00:53.240 actress model. She's actually an art history design degree from Wellesley. 0:00:53.800 --> 0:00:56.240 Was a Girl of the Year under Diana Breeland, was 0:00:56.280 --> 0:00:59.280 a stylist for Vogue, a lot of other stuff. Ali McGraw. 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:01.680 Ali McGraw is one of the great beauties of the 0:01:01.680 --> 0:01:04.160 world and also one of the smartest people I've ever known, 0:01:04.240 --> 0:01:06.199 and I did the movie with her, and I usually 0:01:06.240 --> 0:01:09.319 don't get involved, but after the movie she asked me 0:01:09.360 --> 0:01:11.680 to go to see Sweeney Todd. When Sweeney Todd first 0:01:11.680 --> 0:01:13.319 open and Angel Lansbury, I went to see it on 0:01:13.400 --> 0:01:15.840 Saint Patrick's day. I'll never get it. And then when 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:18.480 he started up this affair, and then we turned into 0:01:18.520 --> 0:01:20.680 a longtime friendship. It goes on and on and on on, 0:01:21.240 --> 0:01:23.640 and she's to this day one of the first real 0:01:23.680 --> 0:01:26.040 life thank in my new book, it's because just cannot 0:01:26.080 --> 0:01:29.639 game to University press about Renaissance Guide. But Ali's personally 0:01:29.680 --> 0:01:32.399 took me by the hand, introduced me to Picasso Picasso's 0:01:32.400 --> 0:01:37.240 GUERNI leave New York and go to Once Franco was 0:01:37.280 --> 0:01:41.440 either passed away and Spain had a social democracy, Picasso 0:01:41.600 --> 0:01:46.959 wanted this cornerstone piece of anti fascist art and horror 0:01:47.280 --> 0:01:49.480 to go to Spain. And so there was a big 0:01:49.640 --> 0:01:53.800 exhibition at MoMA and you couldn't get in, but if 0:01:53.840 --> 0:01:56.600 you were Ali, you could get in. Because Allie's friends were. 0:01:56.880 --> 0:01:58.960 People think that she ran with movie No No, she 0:01:59.120 --> 0:02:01.200 ran with the literal that glitter out, that she ran 0:02:01.280 --> 0:02:05.320 with Halston and Truemy, Capodi and Veland and the head 0:02:05.320 --> 0:02:08.440 of moment, and they head of the met powerful powerful 0:02:08.440 --> 0:02:11.079 people in New York, both women and men. So she thinks, 0:02:11.240 --> 0:02:14.000 by the hand threw me into Picasso, I come out 0:02:14.000 --> 0:02:17.760 of five flowers at Picasso. I'm so But this bears 0:02:17.840 --> 0:02:22.480 this embarrassment because the second person, other than Maria Connell, 0:02:22.480 --> 0:02:25.320 who's a great friend and head of Fit in America 0:02:25.360 --> 0:02:27.280 Folk Art Museum, one of the people got me to 0:02:27.320 --> 0:02:30.800 the Renaissance. After this happened, I am at the National 0:02:30.880 --> 0:02:34.280 Film Festival of Japan with the great Jean Moreau, one 0:02:34.320 --> 0:02:36.680 of the greatest actors as ever, Mike met a Boy, 0:02:36.720 --> 0:02:39.080 one of the great producers ever, producer Robo cop and 0:02:39.240 --> 0:02:41.639 Victoria Sto. And if you haven't heard of him, or 0:02:41.639 --> 0:02:43.560 your listeners haven't heard of him, then they have to 0:02:43.639 --> 0:02:46.920 leave the show. Because Touroro is the first guy to 0:02:47.000 --> 0:02:50.680 filter technicolor, which was against the law to be filtered. 0:02:50.840 --> 0:02:52.639 If you see visions of Light, He's the first guy 0:02:52.680 --> 0:02:54.880 that the experiment. Really you know, we just take tepic 0:02:54.960 --> 0:02:57.679 color for granted. And if you know Apocalypse Now or 0:02:57.800 --> 0:03:00.400 Last Time in Paris or The Sheltering Sky or Last 0:03:00.440 --> 0:03:03.080 Emperor or Dick Tracy, can I go on and on 0:03:03.080 --> 0:03:07.600 and on. Vittorio is a very elite dude and was 0:03:07.720 --> 0:03:11.760 versace all the time, and he had this VERSACEI scar 0:03:11.880 --> 0:03:14.120 pond and not playing mister Horton because I know I 0:03:14.120 --> 0:03:16.080 could talk about Sich Twombley and I could talk about 0:03:16.080 --> 0:03:19.600 franket Dollar or whatever. So I say, vittoyo Keia Rito 0:03:19.639 --> 0:03:21.919 Pettori too, or this is nineteen ninety two. I say, 0:03:21.919 --> 0:03:24.800 who's your favorite painter nineteen ninety one and work Kyoto 0:03:25.000 --> 0:03:28.840 and he goes uh. And even the Padua they see 0:03:28.919 --> 0:03:32.520 Jolto in the very first one by one four frames 0:03:32.520 --> 0:03:38.440 of narrative of light color, perception, dark emotion, negative space narrative. 0:03:39.120 --> 0:03:42.600 I go, what this is, Jolto. I don't know who 0:03:42.640 --> 0:03:45.560 you're talking about, man, And he takes his versace scar 0:03:46.320 --> 0:03:50.440 and he flips it. Look, Francis Coppola said, Victoria Sore 0:03:50.600 --> 0:03:52.240 is the only guy who spent two years in the 0:03:52.280 --> 0:03:56.600 Philippines in a white suit, and he did, and that's Vittorio. 0:03:57.200 --> 0:03:59.120 So he flips his scar, but he says, well, Peter, 0:03:59.400 --> 0:04:02.600 we cannot talk about it, and he walks away. Then 0:04:02.600 --> 0:04:05.120 I say, you get really pretentious, man, and he goes, no, 0:04:05.400 --> 0:04:08.240 you're like the most Americans. You're pretentious, You're like so 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:11.480 many people. You can drop all these names and you 0:04:11.480 --> 0:04:14.720 don't know Joto. You have no context, You have no context. 0:04:14.720 --> 0:04:18.920 He's the one person that's indemnified in contemporary art. Karo 0:04:19.040 --> 0:04:21.400 karof Father of Cubas, that talks about him, Precisions, that 0:04:21.480 --> 0:04:24.240 talks about him, roth Coo talks about him, Picasto talks 0:04:24.240 --> 0:04:27.000 about him. Rembrandt. I'm going I feel like a dummy. 0:04:27.400 --> 0:04:30.160 And I got to sitting at church in the Capella Scrotin, 0:04:30.240 --> 0:04:32.560 which is in my book now, and I find out 0:04:32.600 --> 0:04:36.200 that that's the one piece, the one Nama piece of 0:04:36.400 --> 0:04:40.599 art in the Western world that is like solarified as 0:04:40.640 --> 0:04:43.840 a cornerstone, and all the art that comes after it 0:04:43.920 --> 0:04:45.560 in the Western world doesn't matter what you're talking about, 0:04:45.960 --> 0:04:50.120 post Cubism, abstract Depressionism, piet Mondrian, whatever, They're all gonna 0:04:50.160 --> 0:04:52.160 go back to Joto. They're all going to go back 0:04:52.160 --> 0:04:55.000 to that. I called up Ali, I go, look, why 0:04:55.040 --> 0:04:57.960 didn't you talk about Joto? She says, I did. You 0:04:58.000 --> 0:05:01.040 had no interest in the Renaissance. I'll do the horny 0:05:01.080 --> 0:05:04.039 Toy New York scene like every other idiot, you know, 0:05:04.080 --> 0:05:06.240 I couldn't get you out of modern art. I couldn't 0:05:06.240 --> 0:05:07.960 get you out of get there where art. So that's 0:05:08.000 --> 0:05:10.640 how I started. I said, how do I start this? 0:05:10.760 --> 0:05:13.839 They said, take a classe at Syracuse. Do ten weeks. 0:05:14.279 --> 0:05:16.280 You go to Italy anyway, but you know nothing. But 0:05:16.440 --> 0:05:19.159 I was the ugly American Dana. I'm telling you this 0:05:19.200 --> 0:05:23.680 some benefit of your podcast. I was the guy who 0:05:23.720 --> 0:05:27.360 went to Italy and hung out on the piazza smoking 0:05:27.400 --> 0:05:30.719 a cigar, walking here and there. Yeah, looking at the thing, 0:05:30.800 --> 0:05:33.480 looking at the coliseums, or but never get a deep 0:05:33.560 --> 0:05:36.679 dive into it. Pit me eight years before I started 0:05:36.720 --> 0:05:40.160 to look at the art and now, yeah, PhD book 0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:42.159 with Cambridge University Press. But it wasn't for those two 0:05:42.160 --> 0:05:45.719 people shaming me into it, you know. It wasn't like 0:05:45.760 --> 0:05:48.080 I just kind of went, oh wow, or I think 0:05:48.120 --> 0:05:50.080 I'll do this. I'll flip with the second O and 0:05:50.080 --> 0:05:52.320 stop and no, they gonna do this. Here's a good 0:05:52.320 --> 0:05:55.000 segue here. One of the things I get fascinated in 0:05:55.080 --> 0:05:56.800 when I get my master's degree in a very special 0:05:56.800 --> 0:05:59.560 program at Syracuse University, whether it only take it by 0:05:59.640 --> 0:06:02.760 four six people a year, is I get fascinated with 0:06:03.120 --> 0:06:06.760 the Franciscan movement, which is, by the way, contemporary to 0:06:06.880 --> 0:06:10.160 Frederick the second who we're going to talk about today, Owenstaufen. 0:06:10.920 --> 0:06:13.560 So Francis of a SIZI. We've all heard of him. 0:06:14.200 --> 0:06:17.200 Big saints, statues and gardens all the time. 0:06:17.760 --> 0:06:23.119 Yeah, big deal, Okay, connect joto. Francis is the guy 0:06:23.240 --> 0:06:27.560 who preaches, never is a priest, never does a marriage, 0:06:27.760 --> 0:06:32.280 never owns a mass. Francis and Francis man started walking 0:06:32.320 --> 0:06:34.640 and talking. And you know, I was talking to a 0:06:34.640 --> 0:06:37.680 guy from Oxford and I was speaking in a historiography 0:06:37.720 --> 0:06:42.400 class PhD level at my alma mater, UCLA, and I say, 0:06:42.920 --> 0:06:47.360 the influence of Francis is a quarter million people following 0:06:47.440 --> 0:06:51.240 him within eight years without a fax machine. But here's 0:06:51.279 --> 0:06:54.720 what he's say. He's saying, Look, man, walk the walk 0:06:55.000 --> 0:06:58.359 of the human Jesus. You don't have to do the 0:06:58.400 --> 0:07:01.480 seven steps to happen. If you Hannah what's in front 0:07:01.480 --> 0:07:04.480 of you with kindness, if you understand Christ trying to 0:07:04.520 --> 0:07:08.160 preach kindness and the suffering with it, then you identify 0:07:08.200 --> 0:07:11.000 with it. That's all you got to do, you know. 0:07:11.400 --> 0:07:14.520 And people have been listening to this pulpit crack. You know, 0:07:14.720 --> 0:07:18.280 God wins and you don't, man, You're the loser and 0:07:18.280 --> 0:07:21.400 he's the winner. And all of a sudden, Francis comes on. 0:07:21.520 --> 0:07:24.440 You ought to follow the dude, I mean yeah, I 0:07:24.560 --> 0:07:28.680 to go in so anyway, when he dies, there's a 0:07:28.720 --> 0:07:30.800 whole lot of people really want to follow this thing. 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:33.600 And then of course the hierarchy of the church gets 0:07:33.600 --> 0:07:35.720 hold of his movement and says, no, no, no, we 0:07:35.760 --> 0:07:37.920 got to build churches, make money, la la la, And 0:07:37.960 --> 0:07:40.200 that's too bad, dog, right, Okay, this is right around 0:07:40.240 --> 0:07:44.600 the time of Frederick. Frederick has got some towns, and 0:07:44.800 --> 0:07:48.040 Francis has got some towns that sympathize with the Franciscans 0:07:48.320 --> 0:07:50.640 and someone who sympathize with the pope and want to 0:07:50.640 --> 0:07:53.600 make money. So dig this history of the world. Simply 0:07:54.200 --> 0:07:58.280 Rome falls in Rome around four point fifty, they burn 0:07:58.360 --> 0:08:02.720 the books. You've got nothing. You got tribes coming in. 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:07.120 We used to call them barbarians, oss, vandals, etc. They 0:08:07.160 --> 0:08:09.960 come raiding in Italy. Why Italy? Why is everybody want Italy? 0:08:10.160 --> 0:08:13.119 Now that's my question to you. You can answer why 0:08:13.160 --> 0:08:15.160 does all of Europe want Italy? 0:08:16.040 --> 0:08:18.640 Let's see, is it because it's sort of a strategic 0:08:18.760 --> 0:08:22.120 stronghold before the crusades strategic. 0:08:22.440 --> 0:08:25.120 It's a finger that sticks into the Med, and the 0:08:25.160 --> 0:08:28.800 Med is the only systemic of trade in the world. 0:08:28.960 --> 0:08:31.200 So you got this thing that sticks into the Med 0:08:31.200 --> 0:08:34.400 that nobody owns because roam's down. Hey man, let's go 0:08:34.520 --> 0:08:40.280 conquer the dude, got it. Yeah, So by eight nine hundred, 0:08:40.600 --> 0:08:44.200 Charlemagne takes over and unites the war, becomes Holy Woman 0:08:44.240 --> 0:08:46.320 I heard night, and unites all these tribes. But there 0:08:46.320 --> 0:08:50.280 are still serves in and Muslim groups that have been 0:08:50.400 --> 0:08:54.000 in Sicily forever, and they gonna give it up. So 0:08:54.480 --> 0:08:57.000 Charlottatne says, okay, all you tribes are under me now, 0:08:57.080 --> 0:08:58.920 la la lah. The only one group that doesn't follow 0:08:59.000 --> 0:09:00.880 him is Venice. I love it. That's an whole nother story. 0:09:00.920 --> 0:09:04.120 I gotta talk about. Venice goes few man, we follow 0:09:04.240 --> 0:09:08.079 no emperor nowhere, man. We are Venetian, Venetian, Venetian. They know, 0:09:08.240 --> 0:09:10.840 they go off and do their own thing. Yeah, and 0:09:10.920 --> 0:09:13.760 everybody else's got to follow him, right, So anyway, Charle 0:09:13.880 --> 0:09:17.920 Maine becomes that. Then his Holy Woman empire splits up. 0:09:18.240 --> 0:09:20.640 The next thing you know, there's a crusade, and the 0:09:20.679 --> 0:09:24.280 crusade is essentially by the time that late ten hundreds, 0:09:24.760 --> 0:09:27.840 a pope goes Man, you know what, we're doing enough 0:09:27.920 --> 0:09:31.280 business now with the Levant, which is that you got 0:09:31.280 --> 0:09:34.000 to think of like your Joe blow out there thinking 0:09:34.040 --> 0:09:39.120 of what Islam is now with reactionary fundamentalism as opposed 0:09:39.120 --> 0:09:42.120 to moderate and some for Islam, with the Moors and 0:09:42.280 --> 0:09:46.240 all the way into the Levant. That's Turkey and Judea 0:09:46.679 --> 0:09:49.800 was the most sophisticated civilization of planet Earth. They gave 0:09:49.880 --> 0:09:52.400 us numbers, they gave us star science, They brought back science, 0:09:52.400 --> 0:09:54.839 brought back medicine, brought back to everything. Whatever you may 0:09:54.840 --> 0:09:57.480 think of any religion when it goes into its crusade stage, 0:09:58.040 --> 0:10:02.080 Islam at that point was really sophisticated. Yeah, the Moors 0:10:02.480 --> 0:10:06.200 are Islamic. They fought against the Arabs to keep Spain. 0:10:06.559 --> 0:10:09.520 So you can't just group them all together and go, hey, 0:10:09.760 --> 0:10:11.679 this is all a bunch of Arabs. No, they're not 0:10:11.800 --> 0:10:16.320 the tribal. So what happens is they got Baliland, and 0:10:16.600 --> 0:10:19.360 the Western world wants it. They don't want a new 0:10:19.360 --> 0:10:22.360 business with it, they want to own it. It's the 0:10:22.440 --> 0:10:25.439 place of Jesus and Moses and you know, Joshua or 0:10:25.480 --> 0:10:28.079 whatever man. And so they send a crusade to send 0:10:28.080 --> 0:10:31.760 another crusade, another than a crusade, right, okay, So then. 0:10:31.760 --> 0:10:34.320 Just for a brief context for our listeners, we're talking 0:10:34.360 --> 0:10:36.840 about the Holy Roman Emperor Frederic the Second, and this 0:10:36.960 --> 0:10:40.280 is going to be early thirteenth century, so you know, 0:10:40.400 --> 0:10:43.400 early twelve hundreds. 0:10:42.960 --> 0:10:44.680 Right same time as Francis, by the. 0:10:44.679 --> 0:10:49.320 Way, and Frederick the Second was involved in the sixth Crusades, right. 0:10:50.559 --> 0:10:53.760 Yeah, it's the dicey deal because the first crusade they 0:10:53.800 --> 0:10:57.440 get stuff, and this essentially ends the feudal system, you know, 0:10:57.480 --> 0:10:59.200 because people get leave the land and go, hey man, 0:10:59.240 --> 0:11:00.880 they need numbers as an account and so forth. The 0:11:00.920 --> 0:11:03.280 lawyer's la la la lah. This goes to former university, 0:11:03.320 --> 0:11:06.120 the former University of Bologna and so forth, and Uissia 0:11:06.200 --> 0:11:09.800 Padua and they start account. Then the second crusade is 0:11:10.080 --> 0:11:14.000 kind of dicey. Then the third crusade is a guy 0:11:14.040 --> 0:11:17.959 named Frederick Barbara Rosa. Okay, you know the Robin Hood lender, right, 0:11:18.080 --> 0:11:23.520 Robin Hood of course. Okay, So Robin Hood is the servant. 0:11:23.720 --> 0:11:26.439 Really he's looking for the good king to come back. 0:11:26.520 --> 0:11:30.760 Remember his name, Richard the Lionheart Great, And what's wrong 0:11:30.760 --> 0:11:33.000 with Richard why can't Richard come back? 0:11:34.040 --> 0:11:37.880 Well, I think he was kidnapped by Germans at some point. 0:11:38.240 --> 0:11:40.560 Yeah, that's right. So who's the German guy that kidnapped 0:11:40.600 --> 0:11:43.120 him and said, hey, you haven't recognized me as the 0:11:43.120 --> 0:11:45.400 Holy Roman Emperor. And by the way, you owe me 0:11:45.480 --> 0:11:47.440 some money because you want to this crusade and we 0:11:47.640 --> 0:11:50.880 financed you someone to keep you here. So who's this guy? 0:11:51.480 --> 0:11:52.160 Is it Frederick? 0:11:52.800 --> 0:11:57.600 It's his dad, Henry the sixth, and his dad the 0:11:57.600 --> 0:12:01.360 Holy Woman Emperor Charlemagne the first one, and there's several 0:12:01.360 --> 0:12:03.760 and there's autos and so forth, and then it breaks down. 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:05.720 France says, we don't want to be ali Roman Empire. 0:12:05.720 --> 0:12:08.360 We're gonna be France. Germany continues this idea of the 0:12:08.360 --> 0:12:11.080 only Reman empire. So you got the starting a hunder 0:12:11.120 --> 0:12:13.240 and by the time you get to eleven hundred and 0:12:13.320 --> 0:12:18.680 the Third Crusade, the son of Frederick Barbarossa Redbeard. Okay, 0:12:18.840 --> 0:12:21.840 I'm gonna back up a second, and this period we're 0:12:21.840 --> 0:12:27.000 talking about the famous Normans that invaded England. Normans are 0:12:27.040 --> 0:12:32.160 not just normandy knights anymore from you know, Norway or whatever. 0:12:32.520 --> 0:12:36.400 They are sexually guns for hire, and they really take 0:12:36.559 --> 0:12:43.480 over Sicily. The Norman inclusion of Sicily is amazing. And 0:12:43.520 --> 0:12:48.480 these kings, these tancred Norman kings, Roger the first, Roger 0:12:48.520 --> 0:12:52.840 the second, these are the guys that bring sovereignty to Sicily. 0:12:53.440 --> 0:12:56.840 By what by tolerance? Here's unheard of you. You don't 0:12:56.880 --> 0:12:59.120 do tolerance in the Middle Ages, man, You cut off 0:12:59.160 --> 0:13:02.320 people's eyes and and so forth. But Roger the second 0:13:02.320 --> 0:13:05.880 is the guy who's tolerant of Jews, He's tolerant of Muslims, 0:13:06.040 --> 0:13:08.320 He's tolerant of like the princes who want their own 0:13:08.400 --> 0:13:13.320 lands off. So this Norman guy right is swinging. Okay. 0:13:14.080 --> 0:13:17.120 You know the German guys want like I said, remember 0:13:17.320 --> 0:13:21.280 they want Italy. Okay, they can't get it. Why because 0:13:21.320 --> 0:13:24.880 in between is a pope going. You can't have the 0:13:24.920 --> 0:13:27.199 bottom of the world and the top of the world. 0:13:27.679 --> 0:13:31.040 You can't smash us together. Henry the sixth, the guy's 0:13:31.080 --> 0:13:33.200 getting that bridge of the lineup, gets this great idea. 0:13:34.040 --> 0:13:37.959 You know what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna marry Roger 0:13:38.440 --> 0:13:44.719 the Norman's daughter. Yes, Constance, I'm gonna marry her. And 0:13:44.880 --> 0:13:48.400 that way the Queen of Sicily and me, the King 0:13:48.480 --> 0:13:51.120 of Germany, will own the world together. 0:13:52.040 --> 0:13:54.880 It's a pretty good plan. I can't imagine the rest 0:13:54.880 --> 0:13:56.120 of the world is happy about it. 0:13:56.240 --> 0:14:00.440 But no they're not. First goes wait on, you know, 0:14:00.480 --> 0:14:02.920 the parent's going, hey man, you know I gotta handle 0:14:02.960 --> 0:14:05.319 this guy. Francis man, you know what are you doing now? 0:14:05.559 --> 0:14:08.960 You squeeze me so longstone short. Any of the six 0:14:09.040 --> 0:14:10.240 dies and they have a kid. And they have a 0:14:10.320 --> 0:14:12.640 kid in a play called Jesse, which is near Ancona 0:14:12.720 --> 0:14:15.120 in the eastern part of Italy, which is beautiful, and 0:14:15.160 --> 0:14:18.480 this is Frederick, and Frederick is like taken to Sicily, 0:14:18.679 --> 0:14:23.960 and Frederick is a kid. Immediately the infiltration of a 0:14:24.000 --> 0:14:27.680 whole lot of Lombards does her up by Milan. French 0:14:28.160 --> 0:14:30.120 warrior families come down. I want to take over seas. 0:14:30.160 --> 0:14:33.920 Nobody's running Sicily now, man, the Rogers are gone. The 0:14:34.040 --> 0:14:37.080 Constances can't really do it on our own. This kid 0:14:37.160 --> 0:14:42.880 is amazingly ferociously. There's a legend that when a guy 0:14:42.960 --> 0:14:46.880 named Mark Ward, one of the German thugs, came down 0:14:46.920 --> 0:14:49.400 to take over Sicily, they looked for the kid to 0:14:49.520 --> 0:14:51.720 kill him or to do what when he was hiding 0:14:51.720 --> 0:14:53.840 out he's five years old, that he jumped on mark 0:14:53.880 --> 0:14:56.960 Ward and started to scratch his face and so forth. 0:14:56.960 --> 0:15:00.280 And that's Frederick. I mean, the legends about Frederick are 0:15:00.280 --> 0:15:03.760 immense that what he goes on to be is this. 0:15:04.000 --> 0:15:07.680 He goes on to first tell the pope, look, the 0:15:07.800 --> 0:15:11.720 auto dynasty, the wealth. This is factions and it was 0:15:11.760 --> 0:15:13.760 going to turn into guelfs and ghibelins, people who support 0:15:13.760 --> 0:15:16.440 the both people' support. They're right, I'm jumping to. This 0:15:16.520 --> 0:15:20.360 is about twelve hundreds Frederick's Morning, eleven ninety four, about 0:15:20.360 --> 0:15:23.120 ten years after the crusade. Then your mother dies, his 0:15:23.200 --> 0:15:25.240 mother tries to school it, his mother tries to give 0:15:25.280 --> 0:15:28.480 him tolerance. This is a one off, dude. You gotta 0:15:28.560 --> 0:15:30.960 learn stuff. You gotta learn languages. You got to learn Hebrew, 0:15:30.960 --> 0:15:32.960 you gotta learn Arabic, you gotta learn Greek. You gotta 0:15:33.040 --> 0:15:35.360 learn these people. Man, these people are around you, and 0:15:35.400 --> 0:15:38.040 you better be talking their lingo if you want something 0:15:38.040 --> 0:15:40.640 to do with it, because you can't just win by domination, 0:15:40.920 --> 0:15:44.960 even though you gotta remember, despots do live and they are, 0:15:45.280 --> 0:15:48.640 you know, caged. Yeah, And Frederick second is going to 0:15:48.760 --> 0:15:51.360 spur a guy to debt, you know, and tell a 0:15:51.400 --> 0:15:53.440 guy that you're gonna have your tongue cut out somewhere, 0:15:53.600 --> 0:15:55.560 so they're not nice guys at the end of the day. 0:15:55.880 --> 0:15:59.760 But in the realm of humanism, I'm reading about Franciscanism. 0:15:59.800 --> 0:16:03.400 It's Syracuse, and I'm reading about how these certain cities 0:16:03.960 --> 0:16:07.680 hid are the spiritual Franciscans. You wanted to just walk 0:16:07.760 --> 0:16:09.720 the walk of Francis and not be part of the 0:16:09.800 --> 0:16:12.800 money thing. And I'm reading about how certain parts of 0:16:13.320 --> 0:16:16.840 the pope did not support these spiritual Franciscans, but the 0:16:16.880 --> 0:16:19.720 only woman, Frederic the second, did so I get deep 0:16:19.800 --> 0:16:22.840 dive into Frederic second, and I see that he's into science, 0:16:23.200 --> 0:16:25.280 see that he's in the literature. I see that this 0:16:25.360 --> 0:16:29.560 guy's obsessed with birds. I see obsessed with writing, that 0:16:29.600 --> 0:16:32.880 he's a vegetarian, that he weighs the same amount when 0:16:32.880 --> 0:16:34.600 he was sixty four years old and when he died 0:16:34.840 --> 0:16:37.600 that he did when he was eighteen. I also see 0:16:37.680 --> 0:16:42.800 that he went and got Germany back with the Pope's approval, 0:16:43.280 --> 0:16:47.120 with a whole lot lesser men than Otto, by going 0:16:47.160 --> 0:16:50.360 in and promising all these princes that I'm not going 0:16:50.440 --> 0:16:53.040 to get your jam man, I'm just going to be 0:16:53.080 --> 0:16:56.840 the Holy Roman Emperor. You guys can continue your act. 0:16:57.120 --> 0:17:00.240 I don't want to dominate, you scold, you complain, you 0:17:00.240 --> 0:17:03.000 guys guy pay me the veig, but you guys can groove. 0:17:03.560 --> 0:17:07.480 And then within two months they support him. Then he's 0:17:07.560 --> 0:17:09.480 ordered to go on a crusader. He tells the Pope, 0:17:09.720 --> 0:17:12.639 I will I gotta go back and make sure Sicily's mine. 0:17:13.040 --> 0:17:15.240 And he goes back to Sicily and he does the 0:17:15.240 --> 0:17:21.360 same thing. He essentially wings Sicily through diplomacy. Can't Klowich 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:23.800 writes a book on the guy that lionizes and the 0:17:23.800 --> 0:17:27.160 great David Atalafia, who is wrote I think the greatest 0:17:27.160 --> 0:17:29.879 book on him, who is the mentor to my mentor. 0:17:29.920 --> 0:17:33.160 Pete Stacy at UCLA writes a book that like, say, 0:17:33.240 --> 0:17:36.600 wait a minute, you gotta put Frederic the Second because 0:17:36.640 --> 0:17:40.960 by now Beta everyone has hasted Frederic the Second on 0:17:41.160 --> 0:17:44.760 is like something else. But it's like Cyrus the Great 0:17:44.760 --> 0:17:47.239 with the freedom of the Jews from Babylon and the 0:17:47.280 --> 0:17:50.520 Cyrus Cylinder. The Cyrus Cylindator says, you know, hey, all 0:17:50.560 --> 0:17:52.760 you Jews can go back from Babylon and live in 0:17:52.760 --> 0:17:55.640 your home, because I write a vision from Zora's division 0:17:55.880 --> 0:17:58.440 that people want to live on the turf of their homeland. 0:17:58.920 --> 0:18:02.480 Nobody did this in twenty six PC. They killed you 0:18:02.600 --> 0:18:06.480 or dispersed you or enslaved you. Yeah, but he did 0:18:06.480 --> 0:18:08.560 it once in a while as a dude or a 0:18:08.600 --> 0:18:11.520 woman who goes, you know what, I see that the 0:18:11.560 --> 0:18:16.200 freedom of people is better than the domination of people. 0:18:16.840 --> 0:18:19.560 I can allowing people liberties. The way to control your 0:18:19.560 --> 0:18:21.960 sheep is give him a large pasture. And I think 0:18:22.000 --> 0:18:25.520 that is essentially what Frederick is famous for. And Frederick, 0:18:25.560 --> 0:18:28.000 by the way, goes on a crusade and he wins 0:18:28.119 --> 0:18:32.600 territory by diplomacy, and it pisss off the Pope. They say, 0:18:32.640 --> 0:18:37.879 we know what diplomacy, man, we want like dominance, and 0:18:37.920 --> 0:18:40.520 he goes, yeah, I ain't gonna do that. Then he 0:18:40.640 --> 0:18:43.440 comes back and you know, he's considered the Holy King 0:18:43.520 --> 0:18:46.560 of Jerusalem and so forth, and Pope hates that and 0:18:46.840 --> 0:18:49.440 he gets into an antagonistic thing. Well, but it starts 0:18:49.440 --> 0:18:53.399 the very first state endowed university in Naples, which is 0:18:53.440 --> 0:18:57.120 called it called the University toa Frederica Secundo named after him. 0:18:57.480 --> 0:19:00.600 He does so many things to essentially trans formed the 0:19:00.760 --> 0:19:06.480 idea of and ab lafia. This guy ropes him in yeah, 0:19:06.760 --> 0:19:09.960 and essentially says that Frederick you cannot divorce Frederick from 0:19:10.040 --> 0:19:13.880 essentially the guy who was in a clash with Catholicism, 0:19:14.359 --> 0:19:18.800 as almost all emperors were, you know, until eighteen hundred. 0:19:19.200 --> 0:19:21.960 Cannot take him out of the context though, the dude 0:19:21.960 --> 0:19:27.359 who wanted to be acknowledged as you know, the dude 0:19:27.359 --> 0:19:31.520 of it all. But the acknowledgment aside, yeah, which everybody wanted. 0:19:32.320 --> 0:19:34.679 How he went about it in so many ways, was 0:19:34.880 --> 0:19:39.840 so deferential to human rights in many ways, you know. 0:19:40.440 --> 0:19:42.920 And people say, yeah, okay, man, okay, look he took 0:19:42.920 --> 0:19:45.320 all the Muslims in Sicily. You didn't tell him he 0:19:45.359 --> 0:19:47.440 gave him a hundred thousand acres or ten thousand acres 0:19:47.440 --> 0:19:48.400 in Apulia. 0:19:49.200 --> 0:19:54.280 But if I am correct, he does get excommunicated four times. Yes, 0:19:55.200 --> 0:19:58.720 they forgive him. They bring him back, they say, just kidding. 0:19:58.920 --> 0:20:02.639 You know, how they bring you back because he's diplomatic. Yeah, 0:20:02.720 --> 0:20:06.400 he's diplomatic. What is And he's diplomatic what the noise is. Ironically, 0:20:06.440 --> 0:20:09.360 the guy that really hates him is Gregory than Knight, 0:20:09.920 --> 0:20:13.359 and Gregory the Knight is Ugolino, the guy who championed 0:20:13.560 --> 0:20:16.760 Francis a Vesisi. He's the guy from Umbria who went 0:20:16.880 --> 0:20:19.840 with Francis to Innocent the third and today man. The 0:20:19.880 --> 0:20:21.920 guy's preaching, but he's not a priest. I gotta think anything, 0:20:21.920 --> 0:20:24.399 why I don't kill him? Let him walk around. And 0:20:24.440 --> 0:20:27.400 that's the guy who later becomes the pope who hates 0:20:27.800 --> 0:20:32.000 veteran and he's a very humanist poet, Ugolino, very humanist, 0:20:32.760 --> 0:20:36.520 but he just can't take it that Frederick is not 0:20:36.880 --> 0:20:48.399 bowing to him. 0:20:48.440 --> 0:20:50.800 I think of Frederick the Second as sort of the 0:20:50.960 --> 0:20:54.520 quintessential renaissance man. You know, this is some intolerant spoke, 0:20:54.600 --> 0:20:59.359 multiple languages, a mathematician, a poet, a composer. Obviously, when 0:20:59.400 --> 0:21:02.040 he's excommune indicated multiple times by the Pope, we're going 0:21:02.080 --> 0:21:06.400 to get some sources vilifying him, these pro papal chronicles. 0:21:06.760 --> 0:21:10.240 How would you define his legacy looking at all of 0:21:10.280 --> 0:21:12.719 those sources and sort of weighing it all together. 0:21:13.880 --> 0:21:16.240 You know, I want to be David Abulafia and say, 0:21:16.320 --> 0:21:19.840 wait a minute, let's put the rains on theticism. You know, 0:21:19.880 --> 0:21:23.679 the mystic legend of this guy. Yeah, he did kill people. 0:21:23.920 --> 0:21:25.240 He did jill his best friend. 0:21:25.240 --> 0:21:28.639 You know, it's patrision, but it was a brutal time. 0:21:29.359 --> 0:21:31.840 That's right. You can't take it out of context. But 0:21:31.920 --> 0:21:35.480 he did also give people right to civil courts, over 0:21:35.600 --> 0:21:39.320 land distributions or what. I'm thinking that he is the forerunner. 0:21:39.440 --> 0:21:42.119 I mean, in spite of the fact that doctor Abolafia 0:21:42.160 --> 0:21:45.400 wants to rain him in. I finished reading the Abelavia's 0:21:45.440 --> 0:21:48.520 book and I go, you know what, man, the guy 0:21:48.640 --> 0:21:52.640 is still not like anybody else. And you acknowledge him 0:21:52.680 --> 0:21:55.120 so many times in there. Well, come on, thinking three 0:21:55.119 --> 0:21:57.840 thousand people into Germany, I guess an army of almost 0:21:57.880 --> 0:22:00.760 like you know, eight thousand dudes, and like talking your 0:22:00.800 --> 0:22:06.080 way diplomacy, diplomatically winning that whole thing back and doing 0:22:06.119 --> 0:22:09.640