no illusions about Bohemond’s sincerity or goals. As
the expedition proceeded beyond the taking of Nicaea,
Bohemond’s self-interest became increasingly evident,
and at a very early point he seems to have set his sights
on the important Syrian city of Antioch, one particu-
larly desired by Alexius. Bohemond was a leader in the
prolonged, brutal siege of Antioch (1097–1098), and by
clever manipulation he was able to secure its surrender
to himself. He refused to share it with the other leaders,
and—by now outspoken in his hostility to Alexius—he
made it the center of his own principality. Bohemond
remained in Antioch while the rest of the crusaders’
forces went on to storm Jerusalem (1099).
Bohemond soon found himself beleaguered by both
Byzantines and Turks; he was even briefl y taken prisoner
by the Turks, and he felt that his hold on Antioch was
precarious. Convinced that Alexius was his supreme
obstacle, Bohemond developed a characteristically
daring scheme of attacking Byzantium directly, in his
father’s pattern. In 1104, he left behind his nephew and
longtime deputy, Tancred, to hold Antioch, and secretly
had himself conveyed back to Europe. (A story is told
that, to avoid interception by Byzantine squadrons,
Bohemond gave out the report that he was dead and
then spent much of the voyage in a coffi n, along with a
dead chicken to add olfactory verisimilitude.) In Rome
he convinced the gullible Pope Paschal II of Alexius’s
treachery and animosity to the crusade and was given a
blessing to organize a force to attack Byzantine lands,
disseminating vicious propaganda against Alexius in
the process. Bohemond made a landing at Avlona in
October 1107 but was quickly contained by Alexius at
Dyracchium. Compelled to surrender, Bohemond signed
a humiliating treaty with Alexius in September 1108,
once again accepting Byzantine suzerainty over Antioch.
Bohemond never returned to his hard-won principality;
shortly after making this treaty, he died, perhaps in Bari.
Tancred refused to recognize the treaty of 1108 and thus
initiated an independent Norman rule in Antioch that
would last for the next few generations.
Bohemond was buried in a curious tomb, of either
Muslim or crusader design, still to be seen outside the
duomo in the town of Canosa di Puglia. On its bronze
door there is an inscription of fulsome praise to this
restless but ultimately futile Norman prince.
See also Urban II, Pope
Further Reading
Anna Comnena. Alexiad, trans. Elizabeth A. S. Dawes. London,
1928.
——. Alexiad, trans. E. R. A. Sewter. London, 1969; Harmonds-
worth: Penguin, 1979.
Douglas, David C. The Norman Achievement, 1050–1100. Berke-
ley: University of California Press, 1969.
——. The Norman Fate, 1100–1154. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1976.
Rowe, J. G. “Paschal II, Bohemund of Antioch, and the Byzantine
Empire.” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 49, 1966–1967,
pp. 165–202.
Runciman, Steven. The First Crusade. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1980. (Abridged from Vol. 1 of his History
of the Crusades, 1951.)
Yewdale, Ralph Bailey. Bohemond I, Prince of Antioch. Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1924. (Reprint, Amsterdam,
1970.)
John W. BarkerBONAGIUNTA ORBICCIANI DEGLI
AVERARDI (c. 1220–before 1300)
Bonagiunta, a poet from Lucca who preceded the stil
novo, is a character in Dante’s Divine Comedy (Pur-
gatorio, 24). Bonagiunta was a judge and a notary;
accordingly, in two authoritative manuscripts (Vatican
3793 and 3214) the poet is given the honorifi c ser, and
his name is preserved in deeds drawn up between 1242
and 1257. Fewer than forty of his poems have survived:
eleven canzoni, two “discords” (descorts, or disputes),
fi ve ballads, and some twenty sonnets. Three of the son-
nets are addressed to other poets: one to Guinizzelli (d.
1276) and two to unidentifi ed correspondents. Another
two or three sonnets belong to a tenzone—a cycle of
verses by several authors—initiated by the judge Gon-
nella Antelminelli with Bonagiunta and a certain Bo-
nodico, all from Lucca. Bonagiunta’s themes include, as
might be expected, his changing moods (sorrow, hope,
joy, disappointment) as an apprehensive lover, and praise
of his lady. In some poems, as is also true of Guittone
d’Arezzo (c. 1235–1294) and other Tuscan poets of the
time, Bonagiunta touches on or develops moral topics:
honor versus pleasure; wisdom and integrity versus
foolishness; boasters; corrupt judges; how to deal with
fortune; and so on.
To ascertain Bonagiunta’s place in poetry, and to give
him his due in the development of the Italian lyric, three
crucial connections must be explored. How can we relate
him to (1) the Sicilian school, (2) Guittone d’Arezzo,
and (3) the stil novo? An adjunct to the third question is
this: Why did Dante, in seeking a narrative catalyst to
give himself an opportunity to proclaim and defi ne his
dolce stil nuovo (Purgatorio, 24:57), select Bonagiunta
and not, as Contini (1960) wonders, Giacomo da Lentini
or Guittone?
With regard to question 1, it is easy to reach agree-
ment. Between the Sicilian school and Bonagiunta
there is, in fact, a clear path of transfer and continuity;
thus we have no trouble in granting, with Contini, that
“apart from the very members of the School, Bonagiunta
was the real transplanter of the Sicilian poetry to
Tuscany.”BONAGIUNTA ORBICCIANI DEGLI AVERARDI