Caffaro di Rustico da Caschifellone
Caffaro di Rustico da Caschifellone (c. 1080–c. 1164) was an Genoese crusader and chronicler. He is an important source of information on the careers of the early Embriachi.
Caffaro was born in the village of Caschifellone (now part of Serra Riccò, Province of Genoa) in either 1080 or 1081. While a teenager, he travelled to Syria as a follower of Godfrey of Bouillon in the First Crusade. He returned some time after 1101, and his first writing to receive any public notice was an account of the crusade. Shortly thereafter he began writing his history of Genoa, titled Annales. Though Caffaro's imperfect Latin prevented the Annales from achieving greatness as literature, the chronicle was the first of its kind in Genoa and remains an important historical record.[1]
On the strength of his fame as crusader, Caffaro became a captain in the Genoese navy, and fought in several battles against Pisa and other Mediterranean powers. Toward the end of his long life he became a diplomat, and carried out several diplomatic missions on behalf of Pope Callixtus II, Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa and Alfonso VII of Castile.[2]
References
- ^ See, for example, Cowdrey, H. E. J., "The Mahdia Campaign of 1087" (The English Historical Review, Vol. 92, No. 362 1977, 1-29), which notes both the importance and the limitations of Caffaro's chronicle as a record.
- ^ See Day, Gerald W., "Manuel and the Genoese: A Reappraisal of Byzantine Commercial Policy in the Late Twelfth Century" (The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 37, No. 2 [1977], 289-301).
Further reading
- Face, Richard D. (1980). "Secular History in Twelfth-century Italy: Caffaro of Genoa." Journal of Medieval History, 6(2): 169–84.
- Williams, John Bryan. (1997). "The Making of a Crusade: The Genoese Anti-Muslim Attacks in Spain, 1146–1148." Journal of Medieval History, 23(1): 29–53.
