Simon Doria
Encyclopedia
Simon Doria was a Genoese
Genoa
Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....

 statesman and man of letters, of the important Doria
Doria
Doria, originally de Auria , meaning "the sons of Auria", and then de Oria or d'Oria, is the name of an old and extremely wealthy Genoese family who played a major role in the history of the Republic of Genoa and in Italy, from the 12th century to the 16th century.-Origins:According to legend, a...

 family. As a troubadour
Troubadour
A troubadour was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages . Since the word "troubadour" is etymologically masculine, a female troubadour is usually called a trobairitz....

 he wrote six surviving tenso
Tenso
A tenso is a style of Occitan song favoured by the troubadours. It takes the form of a debate in which each voice defends a position on a topic relating to love or ethics. Closely related genres include the partimen and the cobla exchange...

s, four with Lanfranc Cigala
Lanfranc Cigala
Lanfranc Cigala was a Genoese nobleman, knight, judge, and man of letters of the mid thirteenth century. He remains one of the most famous Occitan troubadours of Lombardy. Thirty-two of his poems survive, dealing with Crusading, heresy, papal power, peace in Christendom, and loyalty in love...

, one incomplete with Jacme Grils
Jacme Grils
Jacme or Iacme Gril was a Genoese troubadour of the mid-thirteenth century. He wrote two tensos which survive, one with Lanfranc Cigala and another one with Simon Doria....

, and another with a certain Alberto. He was the son of a Perceval Doria, but not the Perceval Doria
Perceval Doria
Perceval Doria was a Genoese naval and military leader in the thirteenth century. A Ghibelline, he was a partisan of the Hohenstaufen in Italy and served the Emperor Frederick II and Manfred of Sicily as vicar of Romagna, the March of Ancona, and the Duchy of Spoleto.He was probably a member of...

 who was also a troubadour and probably his cousin.

Identification

A Simon Doria is first recorded in 1253 at Tunis
Tunis
Tunis is the capital of both the Tunisian Republic and the Tunis Governorate. It is Tunisia's largest city, with a population of 728,453 as of 2004; the greater metropolitan area holds some 2,412,500 inhabitants....

, carrying money and gold cloth. In 1254 and 1256 he is recorded as the husband of a Contessina, sister of Giacomino, of the house of the margrave
Margrave
A margrave or margravine was a medieval hereditary nobleman with military responsibilities in a border province of a kingdom. Border provinces usually had more exposure to military incursions from the outside, compared to interior provinces, and thus a margrave usually had larger and more active...

s of Gavi. In 1257 he accepted some money in mutuum. In 1267 he was absent from Genoa and represented there by a proxy. He was dead by 13 March 1275. Obviously a banker or merchant, this Simon is difficult to identify with the troubadour.

It is more probable that the troubadour was the Simon Doria who appears as an ambassador to Ceuta
Ceuta
Ceuta is an autonomous city of Spain and an exclave located on the north coast of North Africa surrounded by Morocco. Separated from the Iberian peninsula by the Strait of Gibraltar, Ceuta lies on the border of the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. Ceuta along with the other Spanish...

 in a treaty of 6 September 1262. He was podestà
Podestà
Podestà is the name given to certain high officials in many Italian cities, since the later Middle Ages, mainly as Chief magistrate of a city state , but also as a local administrator, the representative of the Emperor.The term derives from the Latin word potestas, meaning power...

 of Savona
Savona
Savona is a seaport and comune in the northern Italian region of Liguria, capital of the Province of Savona, in the Riviera di Ponente on the Mediterranean Sea....

 in 1265–1266. He would then be one of many such podestà-troubadours of which the 13th century furnishes examples, many from Genoa. On 13 January 1265 this Simon was sent as an ambassador to Genoa to request Tommaso Malocello as the future podestà of Savona. In 1267 he was in Genoa again, and on 8 July he signed a document ratifying the peace between the Genoese and the Knights Templar
Knights Templar
The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon , commonly known as the Knights Templar, the Order of the Temple or simply as Templars, were among the most famous of the Western Christian military orders...

 under Thomas Berard
Thomas Bérard
Thomas Bérard was the 20th Grand Master of the Knights Templar, from 1256 to 1273. He wrote several letters to the King Henry III of England describing miserable situation in the Holy Land. He initiated cooperation with other two military orders since there had been much rivalry among them before...

. This Simon is last mentioned in 1293 when he was named podestà
Podestà
Podestà is the name given to certain high officials in many Italian cities, since the later Middle Ages, mainly as Chief magistrate of a city state , but also as a local administrator, the representative of the Emperor.The term derives from the Latin word potestas, meaning power...

 of Albenga
Albenga
Albenga is a city and comune situated on the Gulf of Genoa on the Italian Riviera in the Province of Savona in Liguria, northern Italy.left|thumb|220px|Towers of Albenga.The economy is mostly based on tourism, local commerce and agriculture-History:...

.

A certain Simon Doria was in possession of a galley at Genoa in 1311. This was probably not the troubadour, but rather the same Simon as he who was ambassador to the pope in 1271 or 1281. There are thus probably three Simons of the Doria family. It is impossible to perfectly distinguish them, but the tenso with Alberto must have been written before 1250, based on a reference to the Emperor Frederick II in line 40, so the mid-century ambassador-podestà is most likely. The ship-owner of 1311 is almost impossible.

Works

The tenso with Jacme Grils is preserved in two manuscripts: troubadour MS "O", which is a 14th-century Italian work on parchment, now "Latin 3208" in the Biblioteca Vaticana in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

; and a1, an Italian paper manuscript from 1589, now in the Biblioteca Estense
Biblioteca Estense
The Biblioteca Estense , established in Modena in the seventeenth century, is one of the most important libraries in Italy. The library is located in the Palazzo del Musei, Off Via Emilia, at Piazza Sant'Agostino 48.- Collection :...

 in Modena
Modena
Modena is a city and comune on the south side of the Po Valley, in the Province of Modena in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy....

. It is begun by Simon:
Segne'n Iacme Grils, e.us deman,
car vos vei larc e ben istan
e qar per ric pretz sobeiran
e per saver es mentaubutz,
qe me digatz per q'es perdutz
solatz e domneis mal volgutz.
Lord Jacme Grils, I appeal to you,
as you are liberal and full of worth,
and rich, prestigious, elevated,
and wise in reputation,
tell me why worldly pleasure is lost
and gallantry accompanied by bad intentions?

The tenso with Alberto, possibly Alberto Fieschi, N'Albert, chauçeç la cal mais vos plaira, is found only in chansonnier
Chansonnier
A chansonnier is a manuscript or printed book which contains a collection of chansons, or polyphonic and monophonic settings of songs, hence literally "song-books," although some manuscripts are so called even though they preserve the text but not the music A chansonnier is a manuscript or...

 called "troubadour manuscript T", numbered 15211 in the Bibliothèque nationale de France
Bibliothèque nationale de France
The is the National Library of France, located in Paris. It is intended to be the repository of all that is published in France. The current president of the library is Bruno Racine.-History:...

, where it is kept today. It is originally a late 13th-century Italian work. This tenso is the only datable work in Simon's oeuvre, thanks to his stanza #5:
Be.m meravigll, N'Albert, q'en tuta guisa,
no m'autreas del plac so q'eu vos dic,
qe qan ieu tenc midons senes camisa,
l'enperador non evei Frederic,
q'eu sai q'ell'es blancha e frescha e lisa;
I am very astonished, Sir Albert, that in any case,
you do not concede the point I made to you,
that when I hold my lady without a shirt—
the emperor Frederick I do not envy—
I know she is white and fresh and pretty.

External links

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