The Dynasties of Italy: The House of Chiaramonte

Reprinted from Western Exile @westernexile

Origin: Clermont, France (Disputed)

States: Kingdom of Sicily

Highest Titles: Count of Modica, Count of Caccamo, Grand Seneschal, Grand Admiral and Master Justiciar of the Kingdom of Sicily

Heraldic Blazon

Party per fess, in base argent and on a chief gules a mount of five peaks argent

A literal depiction of the family name, from chiaro meaning light and monte mountain, which is also possibly derived from the French noble House of Clermont.

Overview 

While certain legends trace the origins of the Chiaramonte to the days of Charlemagne himself, the dynasty likely arrived in the Italian South in the 12th century from the French region of Picardy, where it had been known as the House of Clermont.

The first named kin are an Edgardus of Capua and Hugo, Lord of Colubraro and Policoro, in the early 12th century, whose sons Alessandro and Riccardo were exiled by Roger II, the first King of Sicily, before the latter reconciled with the fledgling Norman monarchy.

The Chiaramonte would be infamous for their uneasy relationship with the Crown, both under the Norman Hauteville and German Hohenstaufen dynasties, before opportunity came in the chaos of the vast rebellion that convulsed the island in 1282 - the Sicilian Vespers.

On the evening of the 31st March 1282, when an Angevin soldier groped a Palermitan noblewoman on the steps of a church, her outraged father struck the Frenchman down in a spark which lit the tinderbox of revolt against Sicily's latest conqueror - Charles of Anjou.

The revolt unleashed a terrible fury, as Angevin troops and officials across the island were cut down or expelled, and the Sicilians offered the crown to King Peter III the Great of the Catalan House of Barcelona, beginning the age of Aragonese Sicily.

Manfredi Chiaramonte Prefoglio, who served King Peter loyally, would be rewarded by his son King Frederick III in 1296 with the fiefdoms of the disgraced pro-Angevin Lord of Modica, whereupon the title was elevated to a countship. The Chiaramonte dominion had begun.

Over the next hundred years, the heirs of Manfredi Chiaramonte would rival only the Archbishops of Monreale as the most powerful men in Sicily, such that the County of Modica was referred to as the Regnum in Regno - the 'Kingdom within a Kingdom'.

The Chiaramonte therefore were well placed to exploit the anarchy into which Sicily fell amid the Black Death, especially when King Louis himself succumbed to the plague without heirs in 1355, and the Castilian Civil War tied down Aragonese forces in Iberia.

Yet the rebellious Chiaramonte, complicit in the abduction of the dead King's niece in 1379 in an attempt to force an advantageous marriage, fatally overreached. Aragon, outraged, mounted a naval expedition to bring the Sicilian barons to heel.

Slowly, but surely, their allies were peeled back into the royal fold, until Andrea Chiaramonte himself was captured and executed in Palermo in 1392. The County of Modica was thereafter awarded to the Catalan House of Cabrera, and the Chiaramonte never recovered.

Illustrious Members

Manfredi I Chiaramonte (?-1321)

After allying to the Aragonese cause, and enduring incarceration in Calabria as a result, Manfredi earned the favour of Frederick III, who following the latter's coronation in 1296, ennobled him as Count of Modica.

Manfredi would repay the King's generosity by fighting with distinction and determination against the forces of Charles II of Anjou, playing a major role in crushing Angevin attempts to reconquer the island and unite it to their Neapolitan realm on the Italian mainland.

Manfredi achieved the height of his prestige when he represented Frederick III at the coronation of Holy Roman Emperor Henry VII on the 29th June 1312, negotiating within days a potent alliance between both monarchs, for which he was rewarded with an Imperial fiefdom.

Manfredi III Chiaramonte (?-1391)
Expanding the Chiaramonte realm to its greatest territorial extent, Manfredi III acquired virtually the entire southern coast of Sicily as well as the island of Malta, becoming one of the most powerful noblemen in Europe.

Andrea Chiaramonte (?-1392)
Such was the power of the dynasty that Andrea took up residence not in Modica, but the royal capital of Palermo itself, receiving the title of Admiral from Pope Boniface IX. Yet by 1392, that power was an illusion.

Widespread Chiaramontine abuses of power, and the newly ascendant Aragonese, would see Andrea's allies almost entirely abandon him in the face of King Martin of Aragon, who in 1392 landed on Sicily to crush the barons' revolt and bring an end to half a century of chaos.

After a gruelling siege, Palermo capitulated to the royal forces, who were in no mood for clemency. Convicted of high treason, Andrea Chiaramonte was beheaded in front of his own palace on the 1st June 1392, bringing the age of the Chiaramonte to the most ignoble of ends.

Architectural Legacies 

Chiaramontine Gothic

Blending Arab-Norman influences with Catalan flourishes, particularly in intricately decorated arches, the entire architectural movement which spread across 14th century Sicily takes its very name from the dynasty.

Palazzo Chiaramonte-Steri
Completed in 1307 by Count Manfredi III Chiaramonte, the imposing edifice was the dynastic seat of power in Palermo, and so too the scene of the family's downfall, as the site of Andrea Chiaramonte's execution in 1392.

Chiesa di San Francesco d'Assisi, Palermo
One of the finest Gothic churches to survive in the Sicilian capital, and the final resting place of many illustrious members of Palermitan aristocracy. In 1302 the Chiaramonte sponsored the beautiful façade.

Modica
The stronghold of Chiaramonte power, as the comital seat and home to the island's highest court of appeal, Modica swelled into one of Sicily's major cities, laying the foundations for her actual and architectural glory.