L’epistola dei palermitani ai messinesi (13 aprile 1282) e il suo volgarizzamento

The Sicilian Vespers broke out in Palermo on March 31th, 1282, and spread quickly to western Sicily; but, to prevail military over the troops of Charles I of Anjou, rebels needed that eastern Sicily also rose up. This is, in a nutshell, the historical context of the Latin epistle stent on April 13th, 1282, by the Comune of Palermo to the citizens of Messina to incite them to revolt against the Angevins. The epistle’s argumentative framework is provided by two motifs: their right revolt against the angevin tyranny and God’s favour to Sicilians. These two motifs, which are logically separate, are merged thanks to biblical quotations that permeate the whole epistle: Charles of Anjou is identified with the pharaon of the Hebrew captivity in Egypt and citizens of Messina with Jewish people in slavery. Biblical quotes can be distinguished in structuring quotations, which define the metaphorical nucleus with the political content, and reinforcement quotations, which set up a non-specific, scriptural background. In turn, structuring quotations can be distinguished in identifying quotations, overlapping the contemporary figures with those of the Bible, and associative quotations, linking the vicissitude of the citizens of Messina with events of the history of Hebrews, in order to project the results of the history of the latter onto the former. This study analyzes the epistle’s argumentative framework and provides the critical edition of its ancient vernacular traslation, attested by ms. Biblioteca apostolica vatica-na, Chigiano L VII 267 (Ch2), dated 1389, and ms. Biblioteca nazionale dei Lincei e Corsiniana, Corsiniano 44 C 8 (C), of the second quarter of XV century.