Il potere magico di Federico II, Signore del mondo e degli elementi. Ideologia del sapere e ideologia del potere negli affreschi della cripta della cattedrale di Anagni

Frederick II stands out in the context of the first half of the XIII century as repre-senting the peculiar attributes of the medieval emperor. However, the Swabian ruler, shaping an innovative political construction (“a work of art,” according to the defini-tion of Burckhardt), was considered the immutator saeculi who, by virtue of a singu-lar demiurgic capacity (the synthesis of calculation and artifice, but, also, of genius and recklessness) was able to “subvert the order,” placing himself – from opposite points of view – as sol invictus and rex pestilentiae, cooperator Dei and preambulum Anti- christi, lex animata and filius iniquitatis. A particular cycle of frescoes pre-served in the crypt of the cathedral of Anagni testifies to its irreducible contrast with pontifical authority. The cycle, investigated from a symbolic-political perspective, reveals itself to be a singular object of study, fraught with symbolic pathos and allusions to a magical-sacred universe within which the Church attempted to act as the sole hermeneutical navigator.