Il profeta del papa. Vita e memoria di Raniero da Ponza eremita di curia

[Autom. eng. transl.] The volume traces the biographical story, and then the post-mortem fame, of Raniero da Ponza, a Cistercian monk and a hermit with a reputation as a prophet. Raniero, already a companion of Gioacchino da Fiore in the foundation of the monastery that gives his name to the Calabrian abbot, later became a trusted man of Innocent III, and enjoyed a certain notoriety until at least the middle of the thirteenth century. His figure is outlined not only in the close relations with Gioacchino and in the high-profile positions he received from the Roman curia, but above all against the background of the reputation of a prophet who surrounded him already in life, and then especially after his death, which occurred between 1206 and 1209. The reasons for this reputation can be seen on the one hand in the explanations of dreams and visions attributed to it, and on the other hand in the interpretation of historical events in the light of the exegetical-prophetic method attributable to the doctrines of Joachim from Fiore. In this light, the testimony of the letter written in death of Raniero by cardinal Ugo di Ostia, future Pope Gregorio IX, in which he mourns what he calls his "father", takes on great importance. More elements in the ecclesiastical politics of Ugo-Gregorio, particularly in the promotion of mendicant orders and in the clash with Federico II, denounce the assumption of themes and interpretative schemes that can be traced back to Gioachimite prophetism. Finally, the production of pseudo-epigraphic prophecies in the 1940s, while the clash between Federico himself and the apostolic see broke out, shows how the figure of Raniero had survived in the curia that had been closest to the now defunct Gregory, but also in the monastic circles of southern Italy. From this picture it emerges that, far beyond the assumption of a "rhetoric of prophecy", in the circles of the curia of the popes Innocent III and Gregory IX, relatives and both, the prophecy was a privileged instrument of interpretation.