Louis Mendola

This is a translation of the memoir of John of Procida written as a chronicle in Middle Sicilian around 1290 as Lu Rebellamentu di Sichilia contra Re Carlu, with accompanying commentary by one of Sicily's leading historians. The chronicle of John of Procida brings us the spy story, the swashbuckler, the wartime saga and the morality play in a work that transcends any single genre. For historians, the chronicle is a key source in the study of the Sicilian Vespers uprising of 1282, an event that changed the course of European and Mediterranean history. It is also the earliest known narrative prose (rather than poetry) in a vernacular Italian language, pre-dating by decades the first works of this kind written in Tuscan. Most medieval chronicles were written in Latin, but this one was meant for ordinary people. Middle Sicilian is the language that was spoken in Sicily, southern Calabria and parts of Apulia until around 1370. (So little has ever been published in English about this medieval tongue that, until now, it was rarely even identified by a specific name, yet it differs from modern Sicilian almost as much as Chaucer's English differs from what is spoken today.)This chronicle is the longest work in Middle Sicilian to find its way into English translation. John of Procida was a leader of the revolt that sparked the war of 1282. The chronicle recounts his efforts to plan the fall of King Charles I of Naples, culminating in the monarch's loss of Sicily. Largely overlooked until now, this most remarkable chronicle offers us timeless lessons that transcend languages and centuries. Issues like achieving justice for rape victims (Procida's daughter) leap from its pages. Presented by the author of some of the most readable histories of Sicily, the telling of Procida's story in these pages