Riflessioni sulle "capitali" di Federico II di Svevia

The article deals with the problem of the meaning and the possible existence of a “capital city” during the reign of Frederick II in the Kingdom of Sicily in the XIII century. After a preliminary discussion about the concept of “capital” and its applications in the medieval age, the essay analyses the relationship of Frederick with some relevant towns in the Kingdom (Palermo, Napoli, Salerno, Capua, Foggia). The essay doesn’t aim to reconstruct a full picture of the relationships between emperor and cities, but it intends to verify if there was one city (or more cities) in the Kingdom that could aspire to be defined a “capital” or was so in tended by the emperor. After all, it seems that there was no city that matched the idea of “capital”. Neither the case of Foggia represents an exception: on the contrary, the continued presence of Frederick’s court in the city seems to be a negative factor for the development of the city’s community.