Luca Grimaldi 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....

 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....

 and Guelph

Guelphs and Ghibellines

The Guelphs and Ghibellines were factions supporting the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor, respectively, in central and northern Italy. During the 12th and 13th centuries, the split between these two parties was a particularly important aspect of the internal policy of the Italian city-states...

 politician and diplomat. None of his poetic work survives.

Jean de Nostredame

Jean de Nostredame

Jean de Nostredame was a Provençal historian and writer. He was the younger brother of Michel de Nostredame.He was baptised at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence on 19 February 1522...

 listed one Luco ou Lucas de Grymaud, natif de Grymauld en Provence as a Provençal

Provence

Provence ; Provençal: Provença in classical norm or Prouvènço in Mistralian norm) is a region of south eastern France on the Mediterranean adjacent to Italy. It is part of the administrative région of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur...

 troubadour, and speculated that his birthplace may also have been Gennes

Gennes

Gennes is the name of several communes in France:* Gennes, Doubs, in the Doubs département* Gennes, Maine-et-Loire, in the Maine-et-Loire département*Gennes-Ivergny, in the Pas-de-Calais département...

. However, it is more probable that he was of the Grimaldi family of Genoa. He was once identified with a Luchetto Grimaldi from the same period, but a medieval document, Liber Jurium Januae, mentions both a Luca and a Luchetto de Grimaldo.

The first mention of a Luca Grimaldi is in a document formalising the alliance between Genoa and Milan

Milan

Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

 against the Emperor Frederick II in 1240. There was a Luca, son of Grimaldo de Grimaldi, who was the brother of Bovarello, the Genoese ambassador to Charles I of Provence in 1252. This was probably the troubadour, not to be confused with another Luca Grimaldi, son of one Ugo and first cousin of the poet, who 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 Florence

Florence

Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....

 in 1257. In 1255, a certain Luca Grimaldi married his daughter Alasina to Pasqualino Usodimare, who promised not to consummate the marriage until she was twelve. It is not known if this was the troubadour or his cousin.

In 1242 Luca Grimaldi appears as podestà of Milan. By 1253 he had returned to Genoa, where he appears in several acts of the podestà along with Alberto Fieschi. In that year he purchased a precious throne from the cash-strapped Conrad IV

Conrad IV of Germany

Conrad IV was king of Jerusalem , of Germany , and of Sicily .-Biography:...

; he re-sold it to Manfred

Manfred of Sicily

Manfred was the King of Sicily from 1258 to 1266. He was a natural son of the emperor Frederick II of Hohenstaufen but his mother, Bianca Lancia , is reported by Matthew of Paris to have been married to the emperor while on her deathbed.-Background:Manfred was born in Venosa...

 a few years later. In 1258 he was sent as an ambassador of Genoa to the court of Pope Alexander IV

Pope Alexander IV

Pope Alexander IV was Pope from 1254 until his death.Born as Rinaldo di Jenne, in Jenne , he was, on his mother's side, a member of the de' Conti di Segni family, the counts of Segni, like Pope Innocent III and Pope Gregory IX...

 and in 1262 he was elected, along with fellow troubadour 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 other citizens, as rector

Rector

The word rector has a number of different meanings; it is widely used to refer to an academic, religious or political administrator...

 of the city. Luca Grimaldi was also familiar with the troubadours Simon Doria

Simon Doria

Simon Doria was a Genoese statesman and man of letters, of the important Doria family. As a troubadour he wrote six surviving tensos, four with Lanfranc Cigala, one incomplete with Jacme Grils, and another with a certain Alberto...

 and Luchetto Gattilusio

Luchetto Gattilusio

Luchetto Gattilusio was a Genoese statesman, diplomat, and man of letters. As a Guelph he played an important role in wider Lombard politics and as a troubadour in the Occitan language he composed three poems descriptive of his times.-Poetry:...

, beside both of whom he appears in a document of 1267. In 1269 Luca and his brother Bovarello were charged by Charles of Provence, now King of Naples, with receiving the ambassadors of the "Sultan of Babylonia", actually the Abbasid

Abbasid

The Abbasid Caliphate or, more simply, the Abbasids , was the third of the Islamic caliphates. It was ruled by the Abbasid dynasty of caliphs, who built their capital in Baghdad after overthrowing the Umayyad caliphate from all but the al-Andalus region....

 caliph

Caliph

The Caliph is the head of state in a Caliphate, and the title for the ruler of the Islamic Ummah, an Islamic community ruled by the Shari'ah. It is a transcribed version of the Arabic word   which means "successor" or "representative"...

 then in Cairo

Cairo

Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...

, Al-Hakim I

Al-Hakim I (Cairo)

Al-Hakim I of Cairo was an Abbasid Caliph of Cairo, Egypt for the Mamluk Sultans between 1262 and 1302.-Bibliography:...

, in Genoa.

Luca Grimaldi was ever a Guelph at heart. In 1271 he was elected podestà in Ventimiglia

Ventimiglia

Ventimiglia is a city and comune in Liguria, northern Italy, in the province of Imperia. It is located southwest of Genoa by rail, and 7 km from the French-Italian border, on the Gulf of Genoa, having a small harbour at the mouth of the Roia River, which divides the town into two parts...

and he spent his term there working for the Guelph cause. The Ghibellines in Genoa, however, rebelled, and, on 28 October 1271, in a major battle, the Guelphs were defeated and many were captured, including Luca Grimaldi, who was imprisoned for twenty three years. He had died by 18 April 1275, when a Genoese document refers to him and his brother Bovarello as dead. Nostradamus dated his death to 1308, but this is certainly wrong.

Sources

• Hughes, Daine Owen. "Urban Growth and Family Structure in Medieval Genoa." Past and Present, No. 66. (Feb., 1975), pp. 3–28.
• Cronologia di Firenze
• Cronologia di Milano dal 1226 al 1250