Renaissance Man (with Peter Weller)

Summary

Noble Blood — “An Earl, a Priest, and Martha Ray”
iHeartPodcasts & Grim & Mild
Host: Dana Schwartz
Guest: Dr. Peter Weller
Original Release: September 9, 2025

---

Overview

This episode dives deep into the life, legacy, and contradictions of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II (1194–1250), with Dr. Peter Weller — renowned actor, director, and scholar of Renaissance art — joining host Dana Schwartz. The conversation explores how Frederick II navigated fierce papal opposition, fostered unprecedented tolerance and innovation, and embodied qualities sometimes called “Renaissance” centuries before the movement began. Weller also weaves in his own journey from actor to art historian, revealing personal mentorship by figures such as Ali MacGraw and Vittorio Storaro.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Peter Weller's Unlikely Path to Renaissance Studies

Artistic Awakening

• Weller credits his pivot to Renaissance art to being "shamed" into it by friends like Ali MacGraw and Vittorio Storaro.
• MacGraw introduced him to Picasso, and a transformative visit to MoMA convinced him of art’s significance.
• Storaro chastised Weller for ignorance of Giotto—“the one piece...solidified as a cornerstone” for Western art—and inspired him to study deeper.
• Weller’s initial ignorance:

  “I was the ugly American...I was the guy who went to Italy and hung out on the piazza, smoking a cigar...but never did a deep dive into it.” (06:04)

Renaissance Scholarship

• Studied at Syracuse University’s competitive program.
• Fascinated by the Franciscan movement, contemporary to Frederick II, as a spiritually radical (and soon co-opted) force.

---

Italy in the Middle Ages: Geo-Political Turmoil and the Rise of Frederick II

• Italy’s desirable geography explained:

  “It’s a finger that sticks into the med. And the med is the only systemic of trade in the world.” (09:16)

• Post-Roman collapse, Italy is a prize contested by Charlemagne, the Normans, Lombards, Muslims, and upstart city-states like Venice.
• Tolerant, polyglot Norman rulers in Sicily established a unique enclave of coexistence that enabled Frederick II’s cosmopolitan upbringing.

Quote:

“Roger II is a guy who’s tolerant of Jews, he’s tolerant of Muslims...This Norman guy, right, is swinging, okay?” (13:10)

---

Frederick II: The “Stupor Mundi” (“Wonder of the World”)

Personal Background & Traits

• Born to the union of the Holy Roman Emperor (Henry VI) and Constance of Sicily; raised amid chaos and invasions.
• Early legends cite his ferocity and independence, e.g., attacking a usurper as a child (15:20).
• Uncommonly multi-lingual and highly educated, thanks to his mother’s influence.

Quote:

“You gotta learn languages, you gotta learn Hebrew, you gotta learn Arabic, you gotta learn Greek...Because you can’t just win by domination.” (15:05)

Rule, Policies, and Contradictions (12th–13th centuries)

• Supported by multiple Italian towns, Frederick oscillated between papal alliances and antagonism, navigating a fractured Italy divided by Guelphs (papal) and Ghibellines (imperial).
• Intellectual patronage: founded the University of Naples, fostered science, wrote on falconry, promoted literature and the arts; showed “deference to human rights in many ways.” (20:01)
• Diplomatic prowess:

  “Taking 3,000 people into Germany against an army of almost 80,000...diplomatically winning that whole thing back and doing the same thing in Sicily. This is gifted stuff. This is the art of rap.” (24:44)

• Controversial acts: could be ruthless, killed friends and even imprisoned his own son for rebellion (26:50–27:02).
• Religious conflict: excommunicated by the Pope four times, but “they bring him back...because he's diplomatic.” (20:44–20:56)
• Maintained tolerance in Sicily, giving Muslims land instead of slaughtering or expelling them.

---

Frederick II’s Legacy

• Weller stresses the need to balance mystical legend with historical realities:

  “He did kill people. He did kill his best friend, you know, for treason...But he did also give people right to civil courts over land distributions.” (24:17–24:32)

• Seen as a forerunner of the Renaissance, Renaissance humanism, and enlightened rule.
• His death led to a succession crisis (“the great interregnum”) since his heirs lacked his talents.

  “I don't think they had the talent...his jam, which is speaking and coming to terms...is unique to him.” (25:46–27:02)

• Frederick’s inability to transmit his diplomatic and intellectual gifts resulted in the Holy Roman Empire’s fragmentation.

---

Memorable Anecdotes & Quotes

• On learning from next generations:
  Peter recounts being shown Pompeii’s sewage pipes by his son, who found them on TikTok:

  “My kid on TikTok found out where the sewage systems were in Pompeii...It just stopped us dead, Dana.” (27:10–28:30)

• Lead/plumbing trivia:
  Dana: “The elemental symbol for lead is Pb and that comes from the Latin word for plumbing, plumbum...their pipes were lead, their plumbing was lead.”

• On the Renaissance’s real roots:
  Weller is skeptical of Florence’s monopoly on the Renaissance mythos:

  “Florence is the apex of all things Renaissance, but it’s not the seed of all things Renaissance.” (31:56)

---

Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• “You cannot divorce Frederick from...the guy who was in a clash with Catholicism, as almost all emperors were...But...so deferential to human rights in many ways.” (20:01–20:44, Peter Weller)

• “Once in a while there’s a dude or a woman who goes...the freedom of people is better than the domination of people. Like, allowing people liberties. The way to control your sheep is given a large pasture.” (18:57, Peter Weller)

• “I think that is essentially what Frederick is famous for. And Frederick, by the way, goes on a crusade, and he wins territory by diplomacy. And it pisses off the Pope.” (19:04, Peter Weller)

---

Suggested Resources

• David Abulafia, Frederick II — “really the book to read...takes you, walks you through the good and the bad news about Frederick II.” (32:46, Peter Weller)
• Peter Weller’s own book: Leon Battista Alberti in Exile: Tracing the Path to the First Modern Book on Painting — explores a Renaissance polymath as a kind of spiritual descendant of Frederick II.

  “[Alberti] is like the fallout of Frederick II. He’s everything that Frederick II wanted to be.” (29:41, Peter Weller)

---

Final Thoughts

Peter Weller and Dana Schwartz paint Frederick II as a truly singular figure — polyglot, scientist, tolerant ruler, but ruthless when needed; a “Renaissance man” before the Renaissance, remarkable in an age of brutality and chaos. Weller’s personal academic journey, entwined with star-studded anecdotes, makes the episode as much about the process of historical curiosity as about the facts themselves. The episode offers both a rich character study and a tour of Italian medieval/early Renaissance power dynamics, perfect for listeners who enjoy history told through passionate, human voices.

---

Timestamped Highlights

| Time | Topic/Quote | |------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 01:36–06:03| Weller’s journey from actor to art scholar; Giotto and the embarrassment of ignorance | | 09:10–13:15| Medieval Italy—the scramble for power, Norman tolerance, and the importance of Sicily | | 15:05–16:00| Frederick’s unusual education and cosmopolitan worldview | | 18:57–20:44| Frederick’s approach to rule: tolerance, diplomacy, and papal conflict | | 24:17–25:32| Weller and Schwartz discuss Frederick’s legacy: positive and negative | | 27:10–28:30| Weller’s son discovers Pompeii’s sewers via TikTok | | 29:28–32:16| Discussion of Weller’s new book and Renaissance mythmaking | | 32:46 | “Frederick II by David Abulafia is really the book to read...” |

---

Overall Tone: Engaged, storytelling, erudite, sometimes irreverent, and deeply personal.

For listeners, this episode is rich with insight on Frederick II and the roots of the modern West — and you’ll leave with reading recommendations, new Renaissance trivia, and an irrepressible urge to visit Italy with Dr. Weller as your guide.

Transcript

[Peter Weller]

This is an I heart podcast.

[Erin Manke]

If you haven't heard me talk about grooms before, here's what makes it different. It's not just a multivitamin or a greens gummy or a prebiotic. It's all of those things in one comprehensive daily routine. Each daily pack of Gummies has 6 grams of prebiotic fiber, more than 20 essential vitamins and minerals, and more than 60 ingredients which include nutrient dense and whole foods. These are ingredients backed by research publications to support gut health, energy immunity, recovery, cognition, more. Nutrition doesn't need to be complicated, it just needs to work. Get up to 52% off with the code NOBLE at Groons co. That's code NOBLE at Gruns. Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and mild from Erin Manke. Listener discretion advised.

[Dana Schwartz]

Hi, this is Dana Schwartz. I am so excited to be here today for a very special episode of Noble Blood. I'm joined by the incredible actor, director, historian, writer Peter Weller. Just an incredible figure, an incredible life. You've done so much. We're going to be talking about the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick ii. But before we dive in, I would just love to ask, and I think my listeners would love to know what was your transition like going from the acting world in Hollywood to going back and studying Italian Renaissance art?

[Peter Weller]

So I knew nothing about art. My mother tried to introduce me to art. You know, I didn't really get it. There's a wonderful actress. Most people know her as an actress model. She's actually an art history design degree from Wellesley, was a girl of the year under Diana Vreeland, was a stylist from Vogue and a lot of other stuff. Ali McGraw. Yeah, and Ali McGraw is one of the great beauties of the world and also one of the smartest people I've ever known. And I did the movie with her and I usually don't get involved but after the movie she asked me to go to see Sweeney Todd. When Sweeney Todd first opened Angela Lansbury, I went to see it on St. Patrick's Day. I'll never forget it. And then we started up this affair fair and then return it to a long time friendship that goes on and on and on. And she's to this day one of the first people I thank in my new book it's just come out Cambridge University Press about a Renaissance guide. But Ali's personally took me by the hand introduced her to Picasso. Picasso's Guernica was leave New York and go to once Franco was either passed away in Spain, had A social democracy. Picasso wanted this cornerstone piece of anti fascist art and horror to go to Spain. And so there was a big exhibition Dana at MoMA. And you couldn't get in. But if you were Ally, you could get in because Ally's friends were. People think that she ran with movie. No, no, she ran with the literat. That glitter out there. She ran with like Halston and Trumi Capote and Vreeland and the head of MoMA and the head of the Met. Powerful, powerful people in New York, both women and men. So she took me by the hand, threw me into Picasso. I come out of five floors of Picasso, I'm sold. But this bears this embarrassment because the second person, other than Maria Canelli, who's a great friend and head of FIT and American Folk Art Museum, one of the people got me to the Renaissance after this happened. I am at the National Film Festival of Japan with the great Jean Moreau, one of the greatest actresses ever, Mike Metaboy, one of the great producers ever produced robocop, and Victorio Storaro. And if you haven't heard of him or your listeners haven't heard of him, then they have to leave the show because Toro is the first guy to filter Technicolor, which was against the law to be filtered. If you see visions of light, he's the first guy. They experiment, really. You know, we just take Technicolor for granted. And if, you know, Apocalypse now or Last Tango in Paris or the Sheltering sky or Last Emperor or Dick Tracy, can I go on and on and on. But Vittorio is a very elite dude and was Versace all the time. And he had this Versace scarf on and not playing Mr. Hortico, because I know I could talk about Cy Twombly and I could talk about Frankenthaler and whatever. So I say, vittorio, Favorito, this is 1992. I said, who's your favorite painter? 1991. And we're Kyoto. And he goes, and even the Padua to see Joto in the very first, one by one, four frames of narrative of light, color perception, dark emotion, negative space, narrative. I go, what? He says, giotto, I. I don't know who you're talking about, man. And he takes his Versace scar and he flips it. Look, Francis Coppola said, victoria Sorella is the only guy who had spent two years in the Philippines in a white suit. And he did. And that's Vittorio. So he flips his scarf and he says, well, Peter, we cannot talk about art. And he walks away. Then I say, you're really pretentious man. And he goes, no, you're like most Americans, you're pretentious. You like so many people. You can drop all these names and you don't know Giotto. You have no context. You have no context. He's the one person that's indemnified in. In contemporary art. Carlo Carra, father of Cubism, talks about it. Precisionism talks about him. Rothko talks about him. Picasso talks about him. Rembrandt. I'm going, I feel like a dummy. And I go to sit in that church in the Capella Scriven, which is in my book now, and I find out that that's the one piece, the one Dana piece of art in the Western world that is, like, solidified as a cornerstone, and all the art that comes after it in the Western world doesn't matter what you're talking about. You know, post Cubism, abstract Impressionism, Piet Mondrian, whatever. They're all going to go back to Giotto. They're all going to go back to that. I call up Ali, I go, look, why didn't you tell me about Giotto? She says, I did. You had no interest in the Renaissance. You wanted to do the horny toy New York scene like every other idiot. You know, I couldn't get you out of modern art. I couldn't get you out of get there. So that's how I started.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Peter Weller]

I said, how do I start this? They said, take your class at Syracuse, do 10 weeks. You go to Italy anyway. But, you know nothing. I was the ugly American. Dana, I'm telling you this on benefit of your podcast. I was the guy who went to Italy and hung out on the piazza, smoking a cigar, walking here and there. Yeah. Looking at the thing, looking at the Coliseum, so. But never did a deep dive into it. Took me eight years before I started to look at the art. And now. Yeah. PhD book with Cambridge University Press. But it wasn't for those two people shaming me into it. You know, it wasn't like I just kind of went, oh, wow, all right, I think I'll do this. I'll flip it to second orange. Stop. And I think I do this here's a good segue here. One of the things I get fascinated in when I get my master's degree at a very special program in Syracuse University, where they only take about four or six people a year, is I get fascinated with the Franciscan movement, which is, by the way, contemporary to Frederick ii, who we're going to talk about today. Owen Staufen. So Francis of Assisi, we've all heard of him.

[Dana Schwartz]

Big saints, statues in gardens all the time.

[Peter Weller]

Yeah, big deal. Okay, you connect Giotto, Francis is the guy who preaches. Never is a priest, never does a marriage, never holds a mass. Francis. And Francis Mann started walking and talking. And, you know, I was talking to a guy from Oxford, and I was speaking in a historiography class, PhD level at my alma mater, UCLA. And I say, the influence of Francis is a quarter million people following him within eight years without a fax machine. But here's what he's saying. He's saying, look, man, walk the walk of the human Jesus. You don't have to do the seven steps to heaven if you handle what's in front of you with kindness. If you understand Christ trying to preach kindness and the suffering with it, then you identify with it. That's all you got to do, you know, and people have been listening to this pulpit crap. You know, God wins and you don't, man, you're the loser and he's the winner. And all of a sudden, Francis comes. You ought to follow the dude. I mean, yeah, I'd have gone with him. So anyway, when he dies, there's a whole lot of people who really want to follow his thing. And then, of course, they're hierarchy of the church gets hold of his movement and says, no, no, no, we got to build churches, make money. La la. And that's too bad dogma, okay? This is right around the time of Frederick. Frederick has got some towns and Francis got some towns that sympathize with the Franciscans and some who sympathize with the Pope and want to make money. So dig this history of the world simply, Rome falls in Rome. Route 450, they burned the books. You got nothing. You got tribes coming in. We used to call them barbarians. Visigoths, Osteogars, Vandals, et cetera. They come raiding in Italy. Why Italy? Why does everybody want Italy? Now that's my question to you. You can answer. Why does all of Europe want Italy?

[Dana Schwartz]

Let's see. Is it because it's sort of a strategic stronghold before the Crusades?

[Peter Weller]

Strategic? It's a finger that sticks into the med. And the med is the only systemic of trade in the world. So you got this thing that sticks into the med that nobody owns because Rome's down. Hey, man, let's go conquer the dude. Got it.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Peter Weller]

So by 8900, Charlemagne takes over and unites the, you know, becomes holy woman of her, unites all these tribes. But there are still Saan and Muslim groups that have been in Sicily forever, and they going to give it up. So Charlemagne says, okay, all you tribes are under me now. The only one group that doesn't follow him is Venice. I love it. That's a whole nother story I gotta talk about. Venice goes, f you, man. We ain't following no emperor nowhere, man. We are Venetian, Venetian, Venetian. They, you know, they go off and do their own thing. Yeah, and everybody else has got to follow him. Right? So anyway, Charlamagne becomes that. Then his Holy Roman Empire splits up. The next thing you know, there's a Crusade. And the Crusade is essentially by the time, the late ten hundreds, a Pope goes, man, you know what? We're doing enough business now with the Levant, which is that you got to think of like, you know, Joe Paul out there thinking of what Islam is now with reactionary fundamentalism. So as opposed to modern and so forth, Islam with the Moors and all the way into the Levant, that's Turkey and Judea was the most sophisticated civilization on planet Earth. They gave us numbers, they gave us star science, they brought back science, brought back medicine, brought back everything, Whatever you may think of any religion when it goes into its Crusade stage, Islam at that point was really sophisticated. Yeah, the Moors are Islamic. They fought against the Arabs to keep Spain. So you can't just group them all together and go, hey, this is all a bunch of Arabs. No, they're not. They're tribal. So what happens is they got the Holy Land and the Western world wants it. He don't want to do business with it. They want to own it. It's the place of Jesus and Moses and, you know, Joshua and whatever, man. And so they send a crusade to send another crusade, another new crusade.

[Dana Schwartz]

Right, okay, so then just for a brief context for our listeners, we're talking about the Holy Roman emperor, Frederick II. And this is going to be early 13th century, so, you know, early 1200s.

[Peter Weller]

Right. Same time as Francis, by the way.

[Dana Schwartz]

And Frederick II was involved in the sixth Crusades, right?

[Peter Weller]

Yeah. And it's a dicey deal because the First Crusade, they get stuff, and that's essentially ends the feudal system, you know, because people get. Leave the land and go, hey, man, they need numbers guys and accountants and so forth, the lawyers. Let's go to former university, the former University of Bologna and so forth, and University of Padua, and they start account. So what? Then the Second Crusade is kind of dicey. Then the Third Crusade is a guy named Frederick Barbarosa, okay? You know, the Robin Hood legend Right, Robin Hood.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah, of course.

[Peter Weller]

Okay, so Robin Hood is the servant, really. He's looking for the good king to come back. Remember his name?

[Dana Schwartz]

Richard the Lionheart.

[Peter Weller]

Great. And what's wrong with Richard? Why can't Richard come back?

[Dana Schwartz]

Well, I think he was kidnapped by Germans at some point.

[Peter Weller]

Yeah, that's right. So who's the German guy that kidnapped him and said, hey, you haven't recognized me? There's the Holy Roman Emperor. And by the way, you owe me some money because you went on this crusade and we financed you. Someone to keep you here. So who's this guy?

[Dana Schwartz]

Is it Frederick?

[Peter Weller]

It's his dad, Henry vi, and his dad, the Holy Roman Emperor. You know, Charlemagne's the first one, and there's several of them. There's autos and so forth. And then it breaks down. France says, we don't want to be all the Roman Empire. We're going to be France. Germany continues this idea of the Holy Roman Empire. So you got the starting 800, and by the time you get to 1100 in the third crusade, the son of Frederick Barbarosa Redbeard. Okay, I'm gonna back up a second. And this period, we're talking about the famous Normans that invaded England. Normans are not just Normandy knights anymore from, you know, Norway or whatever. They are sexually guns for hire, and they really take over Sicily. The Norman inclusion of Sicily is amazing. And these kings, these tankred Norman kings, Roger I, Roger ii, these are the guys that bring sovereignty to Sicily. By what? By tolerance. This is unheard of. You know, you don't do tolerance in the Middle Ages, man. You cut out people's eyes and tongues and so forth. But Roger II is a guy who's tolerant of Jews, he's tolerant of Muslims, he's tolerant of, like, the princes who want their own land, so forth. So this Norman guy, right, is swinging, okay? You know, the German guys want. Like I said, remember, they want Italy, okay? They can't get it. Why? Because in between is a Pope going, you can't have the bottom of the world and the top of the world. You can't smash this together. Henry vi, the guys kidnapped Bridget. The liner gets this great idea. You know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna marry Roger, the Norman's daughter. Yes, Constance, I'm gonna marry her. And that way the Queen of Sicily and me, the King of Germany, will own the world together.

[Dana Schwartz]

It's a pretty good plan. I can't imagine the rest of the world is happy about it.

[Peter Weller]

But, no, they're Not France goes, wait a minute, you know, the pimp's going, hey, man, you know, I gotta handle this guy. Francis, man, you know, what are you doing now? You're squeezing me? So long story short, Henry VI dies and they have a kid. And they have a kid in a place called Jesse, which is near Ancona in the eastern part of Italy, which is beautiful. And this is Frederick. And Frederick is, like, taken to Sicily, and Frederick is a kid. Immediately, the infiltration of a whole lot of Lombards, those are up by Milan. French warrior families come down, want to take over. Since nobody's running Sicily now, man, the Rogers are gone. The Consis can't really do it on her own. This kid is amazingly ferociously. There's a legend that when a guy named Mark Ward, one of the German thugs, came down to take over Sicily, they looked to the kid to kill him or to do what. When he was hiding out, he was five years old, that he jumped on Mark Ward and started to scratch his face and so forth, man. And that's Frederick. I mean, the legends about Frederick are immense. But what he goes on to be is this. He goes on to first tell the Pope, look, the Otto dynasty, the wealth. This is factions. Italy's going to turn into Guelphs and Ghibellines, people who support the Pope. People support the river. Right? I'm jumping out. This is about 1200s. Frederick's born in 1194, about 10 years after the Crusade. Then his mother dies. His mother tries to school him, his mother tries to give him tolerance. This is a one off, dude. You got to learn stuff. You got to learn languages, you got to learn Hebrew, you got to learn Arabic, you got to learn Greek. You got to learn these people, man, these people around you. And you better be talking their lingo if you want something to do with it. Because you can't just win by domination. Even though you got to remember despots do live and they are, you know, canes. Yeah. And Frederick II is going to spur a guy to death, you know, and tell a guy that you're going to have your tongue cut out and so forth. So they're not nice guys at the end of the day. But in the realm of humanism, I'm reading about Franciscanism at Syracuse, and I'm reading about how these certain cities hid the spiritual Franciscans who wanted to just walk the walk of Francis and not be part of the money thing. And I'm reading about how certain parts of the Pope did not support these spiritual friends, but the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II did. So I get deep dive into Frederick ii and I see that he's into science. See he's in the literature. I see that this guy's obsessed with birds. I see. Obsessed with writing that he's a vegetarian, that he weighs the same amount when he was 64 years old and when he died that he did when he was 18. I also see that he went and got Germany back with the Pope's approval, with a whole lot lesser men. And Otto, by going in and promising all these princes that I'm not going to get your jam, man. I'm just gonna be the Holy Roman Emperor. You guys can continue your act. I don't want to dominate you scold, you complain, you guys gotta pay me the vig. But you guys can groove. And then within two months, they support him. Then he's ordered to go on a crusade. He tells the pove, hey, I will. I gotta go back and make sure Sicily's mine. And he goes back to Sicily, and he does the same thing. He essentially wins Sicily through diplomacy. Ken Torwicz writes a book on a guy that lionizes him, the great David Adelafia, who is. Wrote, I think, the greatest book on him. Who was the mentor to my mentor. Pete Stacy at UCLA writes a book that, like, say, wait a minute, you gotta put Frederick ii. Because by now, Bina, everyone has pasted Frederick II on as, like, something else. But it's like Cyrus the Great with the freedom of the Jews from Babylon and the Cyrus Cylinder. The Cyrus Cylinder says, you know, hey, all you Jews can go back from Babylon and live in your hometown. Because I had a vision from Azores Division that people want to live on the turf of their homeland. Nobody did this in 526bc. They killed you or dispersed you or enslaved you. Yeah, but he did it. Once in a while, there's a dude or a woman who goes, you know what? I see that the freedom of people is better than the domination of people. Like, allowing people liberties. The way to control your sheep is given a large pasture. And I think that is essentially what Frederick is famous for. And Frederick, by the way, goes on a crusade, and he wins territory by diplomacy. And it pisses off the Pope. You say, we don't want diplomacy mad. We want, like, dominance. And he goes, yeah, I ain't gonna do that. Then he comes back and, you know, he's considered the Holy King of Jerusalem and so forth. And Pope hates that. And he gets into an antagonistic thing with starts. The very first state endowed university, University of Naples, which Is called. Called the Universita Federico Segundo, named after him. He does so many things to essentially transform the idea of. And Abu Lafayette, this guy ropes him in.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Peter Weller]

And essentially says that Frederick. You cannot divorce Frederick from. Essentially. The guy who was in a clash with Catholicism, as almost all emperors were, you know, until the 1800s. Cannot take him out of the context of the dude who wanted to be acknowledged as, you know, the dude of it all. But the acknowledgment aside. Yeah. Which everybody wanted. How he went about it in so many ways was so deferential to human rights in many ways, you know, and people say, yeah, okay, man. Okay, look, he took all the Muslims in Sicily. He didn't kill him. He gave him 100,000 acres or 10,000 acres in a pool yet.

[Dana Schwartz]

But if I am correct, he does get excommunicated four times.

[Peter Weller]

Yes.

[Dana Schwartz]

They forgive him. They bring him back. They say. Just kidding.

[Peter Weller]

You know why they bring him back? Because he's diplomatic.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Peter Weller]

He's diplomatic with Innocent. He's diplomatic with the Norius. Ironically, the guy that really hates him is Gregory the Night. And Gregory the Night is Ugolino, the guy who championed Francis of Assisi. He's the guy from Umbria who went with Francis to Innocent III and said, hey, man, the guy's preaching, but he's not a priest. I'm taking away. Don't kill him. Let him walk around. And that's the guy who later becomes the Pope who hates Frederick. And he's a very humanist pope, Ugolino, very humanist, but he just can't take it that Frederick is not bowing to him.

[Erin Manke]

Summer is winding down, and I'm taking this opportunity to refresh my wardrobe with staple pieces for the season ahead. I am long out of school, but something about it almost being fall makes me go into, like, back to school shopping mode. And Quince nails it with luxe essentials that feel effortless and look polished, perfect for layering and mixing. Their styles are so versatile, I find myself reaching for them again and again. Think like, cashmere and cotton sweaters starting at just $40. Washable silk tops, classic denim pants. Timeless styles you'll keep coming back to. And the best part, everything with Quint is half the cost of similar brands. And Quint only works with factories that use safe, ethical, and responsible manufacturing practices and premium fabrics and finishes. I have a quince dress that I absolutely love. It's gingham, which makes me feel very trendy and put together. And I wear it with a Quint sweater like all the time. It just became like the classic staple. I reach for constantly and I'm also eyeing. I haven't gotten it yet, but Quint also has bags. And I feel like I've had a Quint's bag in my shopping cart online for a few weeks that I'm about to pull the trigger on. That's true. Elevate your fall wardrobe essentials with quints. Go to quint.comnoble for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q-U-I-N C-E.comnoble to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.comnoble you've heard about royal bloodlines, but what about the kingdom within your body? Trillions of gut bacteria wage battles that shape your health, vitality, and even weight. Introducing Bioma, a novel supplement with everything your gut needs. Prebiotics, probiotics, and postbiotics, all science backed and third party tested. Enjoy better digestion, sustained energy and improved well being. Plus smoother weight management. When following a diet and exercise plan, visit Bioma Health and use code noble for 15% off your first order.

[Dana Schwartz]

I think of Frederick II as sort of the quintessential Renaissance man. You know, this is someone tolerant, spoke multiple languages, a mathematician, a poet, a composer. Obviously, when he's excommunicated multiple times by the Pope, we're going to get some sources vilifying him, these pro papal chronicles. How would you define his legacy? Looking at all of those sources and sort of weighing it all together, you.

[Peter Weller]

Know, I want to be David Abalafi and say, wait a minute, let's put the reins on the mysticism, you know, the mystic legend of this guy. Yeah, he did kill people. He did kill his best friend, you know, for treason.

[Dana Schwartz]

But it was a brutal time.

[Peter Weller]

That's right. You can't take it out of context. But he did also give people right to civil courts over land distributions. And what I'm thinking, that he is the forerunner. I mean, in spite of the fact that Dr. Abalavia wants to rein him in. I finished reading the Abolavia's book and I go, you know what, man? The guy is still not like anybody else. And you acknowledge him so many times in there. Well, come on, taking 3,000 people into Germany against an army of almost like, you know, 80,000 dudes and like talking your way, diplomacy, diplomatically winning that whole thing back and doing the same thing in Sicily. This is gifted stuff. This is the art of rap. I think that's his great legacy. His great legacy is diplomacy, I think. And one can bring up all of the footnotes about brutality, but like you said, it's the time you're living in. If somebody tries to kill you, you kill them. That's the way it goes.

[Dana Schwartz]

Well, I do have one question about Frederick's legacy. It looks like after he dies, we're going to get the great interregnum with the Holy Roman Emperor. There's not going to be a clear succession after him. Why is that?

[Peter Weller]

I don't think that Manfredi or Manfred or Conrad. Conradine or grandson. I don't think they had the talent. Yeah, if you're fatherless and then you're raised by this incredible mother who is like running a show and instills the temperance in you that you're going to live through, that's inured. I mean, that's almost something that you can't be taught. So his jam, which is speaking and coming to terms and let's meet, let's do this, let's do that, is unique to him. And when he goes, I don't think that he's taught that to his kids or his grandkids. Bianca is a lover who basically, they say he married, who even Avalaf acknowledges was the one sort of passion in his life. They probably did marry her before he died, but they never spent time with the kid. I gotta go. You know, this is right, this is wrong. Here's what you do. Usually what you. You go here, you do that. I don't know if Frederick had those people to school his kids. I don't think his kids knew international law. I don't think he spoke five languages. I'm sorry. I don't think they, like, travel with him in all his places. His one kid, Henry, tried to revolt against him. He had to take the guy down. He had an imprison his own kid in Germany.

[Dana Schwartz]

So he's a great Holy Roman Emperor, not a great father, not a great dad.

[Peter Weller]

No.

[Dana Schwartz]

Well, nobody's perfect.

[Peter Weller]

I know, I know. But you know what? I gotta remember that my kid and I with the Pompeii, my son has the attention span of all 13 year olds, which is about, you know, 6ft until it gets too hot or the phones are gone or whatever. Hey, he's in Pompeii. He said, hey, dad, over here. Look over here. This is where they had the sewage pipes. Now, I've done historiography on Pompeii. I had to present on Pompeii, had to take tours. Not tours, but school groups. To Pompeii. And I've never seen these sewage pipes. And I said, how did you do that? He says, I found it on TikTok. He found the frigging sewage pipes in Pompeii on TikTok. And then he's got the scholar Antonio and shows us. I almost started crying, man. I was so impressed with him. I was so impressed that he was showing me something. And two days ago, two scholars came up to me and they were talking about the sewage systems in Rome. I said, were they essentially discovered by Pompeii? Says, yeah, the sewer justice. Pompeii have taught us everything. I said, my kid taught me about them. He said, what do you mean your kid taught you about it? I said, about two weeks ago, my kid on Tick Tock found out where the sewage systems were in Pompeii. And we're showing me. And these guys are like your 13 year old kid on Tick Tock was showing you where the sewage systems were. I said, yeah, and it's just stopped us dead. Dana. So good dad, good leader. I don't know.

[Dana Schwartz]

I was in Pompeii a few years ago and the fun fact about the plumbing, that stuck with me. Maybe the listeners don't know, maybe it's incredibly obvious, but the elemental symbol for lead is pb and that comes from the Latin word for plumbing, plumbum, pb because their pipes were lead, their plumbing was lead. Who knew?

[Peter Weller]

Did somebody teach you that?

[Dana Schwartz]

I think our tour guide said that it must have been in the back of my mind. When I studied chemistry in college, I.

[Peter Weller]

Only learned PB meaning lead in Rome with the pipes in Rome, you know, coming out of places like the Coliseum and down with the History Channel. I was at the History Channel learning this stuff. I wasn't walking around pompeii with a 13 year old. But that's great that you know that. And isn't Pompeii extraordinary?

[Dana Schwartz]

I will say it was one of the historical sites that truly floored me, that exceeded all expectations for me.

[Peter Weller]

You have to go back. I've been 29 times now and. But look, 29 times. And now I find out from my kid where the plumbing is.

[Dana Schwartz]

Dr. Peter Weller with your brand new book, Leon Battista Alberti in Exile by Peter Weller.

[Peter Weller]

And the subtitle is Tracing the path.

[Dana Schwartz]

To the first modern book on painting.

[Peter Weller]

Yes. And in it are a ton of photographs and images and so forth. Not to mention at the beginning of it is Giotto in the Capella Scriveni that Victoria storero told me that I was an idiot because I hadn't seen it, which is figures hugely in this thing. And I just want to say this to wrap this up is that, you know, the beginning of this in my dissertation and also acknowledgment in this book and in the dissertation, one page begins with this book owes the debt of Inspiration to Alice McGraw, Maria Canelli of the Brooklyn Academy and cinematographer Vittorio Storaro.

[Dana Schwartz]

That's amazing.

[Peter Weller]

This book, really quickly just. I'll tell you what is a very famous Renaissance guy. He's a polymath, he's an architect, writer. He's. Oh, he's like the. He's like the, the fallout of Frederick ii. He's everything that Frederick II wanted to be, Eddie. Because II also is an amazing architect. You got to go to right, Northern Bari and see his castle, which is a circle with steps only this big. So you can actually run up them, you know, instead of these big clunky deals, you can run up and down them. So that knights can run with armor and so forth, right? And these eight turrets around it. It's astounding piece of architecture that he supervised himself. So look in the notice of February 2, wanting to be this polymath, which is what he was, a language guy, scientist guy, a bird guy, you know, biologist, architect, everything. You got this dude here, Leon Batista Alberti, which I'm sure, who am. I sure knew everything about Frederick ii because Frederick II is like a one off. And he, they say the so many scholars said in the 20th century, oh, you know what, his family was exiled and then he came to Florence and in eight months wrote the first modern book on painting in tripartite, Latin, Ciceronian ideas. And so with. And I'm asking when I was getting my master degree, I'm asking all these ho to do. I said, and one of them, great, Elaine. I said, I can't buy it that this guy just came to Florence and in eight months wrote this astounding book on lines, points, light, dart. They said, yeah, he did. And one guy, Rab Hatfield was his heart, great scholar said, no, everybody knows he came from Padua, he came from Giotto, he came from Bologna, came through all this stuff. I said, what do you teach that? I said, because Florence is the apex of all things Renaissance, which is horseshit. It's just horseshit. You know, Florence is the apex of all things Renaissance, but it's not the. It's not the seed of all things Renaissance.

[Dana Schwartz]

Dr. Peter Weller, this has been such a joy. Next time I'M in Italy. I want you to be my tour guide. This was extraordinary.

[Peter Weller]

All you got to do is let us know when you're going, because even if we can't be there with you, we could turn you on, save you a lot of time and money and saving you essentially a whole lot of energy that you don't need to spend.

[Dana Schwartz]

Wonderful. Well, thank you so much. This is Dr. Weller, author of Leon Batista Alberti in Exile. Thank you so much for joining us. This was such a pleasure.

[Peter Weller]

Okay, listen, I want to last thing, I just want to say this. Frederick the Second by David Abbalathi is really the book to read on the thing. There's a lot of great books, but this is the book that really takes you, walks you through the good and the bad news about Frederick ii. And by the way, no wonder what the bad news is about Frederick ii. You come away thinking, hey, once in a while there's a hero.

[Dana Schwartz]

Absolutely. Thank you so much.

[Erin Manke]

Noble Blood is a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild from Erin Manke. Noble Blood is hosted by me, Dana Schwartz, with additional writing and research by Hannah Johnston, Hannah Zwick, Courtney Sender, Amy Hite and Julia Milani. The show is edited and produced by Jesse Funk with supervising producer Rima Il Kayali and executive producers Aaron Menke, Trevor Young and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite. If you haven't heard me talk about grooms before, here's what makes it different. It's not just a multivitamin or a greens gummy or a prebiotic. It's all of those things in one comprehensive daily routine. Each daily pack of Gummies has 6 grams of prebiotic fiber, more than 20 essential vitamins and minerals, and more than 60 ingredients which include nutrient dense and whole food foods. These are ingredients backed by research publications to support gut health, energy immunity, recovery, cognition, more Nutrition doesn't need to be complicated, it just needs to work. Get up to 52% off with the code NOBLERUNSCO. That's code NOBLECO.

[Peter Weller]

This is an iHeart podcast.