Frederick III of Aragon (1296–1337)

Frederick III of Aragon (1296–1337): Comparison

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Frederick III of Aragon, King of Sicily (1296–1337). Frederick III of Aragon was the third king of the Aragonese dynasty on the throne of Sicily. He ruled from 1296 to 1337 and he was the only Aragonese king of Sicily who made a significant use of his image. In particular, we have four official (namely, commissioned directly by him or his entourage) representations of him: the royal seal, the billon silver denaro coin, the lost mosaic from the Church of Santa Maria della Valle (known as Badiazza) near Messina, and the mosaic in the Cathedral of Messina.

royal images
royal iconography
kings of Sicily
Aragonese dynasty
Frederick III of Aragon

Introduction

Notwithstanding he already ruled as vicar of his brother James II from 1291, only in 11 December 1295 was Frederick III of Aragon elected King of Sicily by the Sicilian Parliament. Afterwards, he was crowned in Palermo on 25 March 1296 and he reigned until his death in 25 June 1337 (about Frederick III of Aragon, King of Sicily, see

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, the update

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and synthetically

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. More recent but not particularly interesting are

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. For a historiographical framework on Frederick III, see

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(pp. 183–211)). Among the kings of the Aragonese dynasty on the Sicilian throne, Frederick III seems to be the only one who made significant use of his image and, for this reason, he has been selected to represent the iconography of this royal family (we do not know of any images of Peter III of Aragon acting as King of Sicily. The lost wall paintings of the Cappella di Santa Maria Incoronata in Palermo date back to the 16th century

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and it does not seem that he made a specific seal for the Kingdom of Sicily by only using the seal of king of Aragon

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(Volume 1, pp. 115–117 and 207–208). With regard to James II of Aragon acting as King of Sicily, we only have the images of the seal

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(Volume 1, p. 8 and pp. 240–241, no. 187),

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(p. 82, although the reference should be corrected) and the denaro

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(p. 10),

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(p. 264 and pp. 696–697, plate 42, images no. 769–770)). Regarding him, we have four official (namely, commissioned directly by him or his entourage) representations: the royal seal, the billon silver denaro coin, the lost mosaic from the Church of Santa Maria della Valle (known as Badiazza) near Messina, and the mosaic in the Cathedral of Messina (about the identification of Frederick III’s official image, see

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References

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Olivar Bertrand, R. Un rei de llegenda. Frederic III de Sicilia; Aymà: Barcelona, Spain, 1951.
Backman, C.R. Declino e caduta della Sicilia medievale. Politica, religione ed economia nel regno di Federico III d’Aragona Rex Siciliae (1296–1337); Officina di Studi Medievali: Palermo, Italy, 2007; (Original edition Cambridge, UK, 1995).
Backman, C.R. Federico III d’Aragona: un regno rivisitato. In Il Mediterraneo del ‘300 ed il regno di Federico III d’Aragona: saperi, economia, società; Musco, A., Ed.; Schede Medievali. Rassegna dell’Officina di Studi Medievali; 2011; Volume 49, pp. 7–14.
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Bellafiore, G. Edifici d’età islamica e normanna presso la Cattedrale di Palermo. Bollettino d’Arte. Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione 1967, 52/3, 178–195.
De Sagarra, F. Sigillografía Catalana. Inventari, descripció i estudi dels segells de Catalunya; Henrich: Barcelona, Spain, 1915–1932.
Serrano Coll, M. Effigies Regis Aragonum. La imagen figurativa del rey de Aragón en la Edad Media; Institución Fernando el Católico: Zaragoza, Spain, 2014.
Spahr, R. Le monete siciliane dagli Aragonesi ai Borboni (1282–1836); Banco di Sicilia: Palermo, Italy, 1959.
Grierson, P.; Travaini, L. Medieval European Coinage. With a Catalogue of the Coins in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK, 1998; Volume 14/3.
Vagnoni, M. Royal Epiphanies in the Kingdom of Sicily: Frederick III of Aragon (1296–1337). In The Ruler’s Image and Its Multiple Functions in the Medieval Mediterranean; Bacci, M., Studer-Karlen, M., Vagnoni, M., Eds.; Brill: Leiden, The Netherlands, 2022; in press.