The House of Wisdom (2009)
“Grandson of Roger II—the original “baptized sultan” and the sponsor of al-Idrisi’s Map of the World—Frederick was twice excommunicated by the popes for disobedience and widely suspect in the West for his love of Muslim learning, his deep ambivalence toward Christian holy war, and his immoderate erudition. Frederick spoke half a dozen languages, followed a scandalous regimen of bathing and diet prescribed by his Arab physicians, and traveled with his own personal “dialectician”—a Muslim, no less...—so he could pursue his philosophical studies on the road.
His running war of words with the popes, at times drifting into armed conflict, led to a church-inspired whisper campaign claiming that Frederick was actually the Antichrist, a rumor bolstered by the circumstances surrounding his birth. Frederick’s mother was the posthumous daughter of Roger II, and it was said that she had been hidden away in a convent at an early age amid predictions that she would one day bring disaster to the land.MoreLess
His running war of words with the popes, at times drifting into armed conflict, led to a church-inspired whisper campaign claiming that Frederick was actually the Antichrist, a rumor bolstered by the circumstances surrounding his birth. Frederick’s mother was the posthumous daughter of Roger II, and it was said that she had been hidden away in a convent at an early age amid predictions that she would one day bring disaster to the land.MoreLess
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