La saga norvegese di Teoderico di Verona

VERONKA SZOKE

2022-01-01

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Abstract

Theodoric the Great led a double life: a historical figure who played a role in events on the Italian peninsula between Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and a legendary ruler who was portrayed in Middle German poetry as an exile constantly waiting for fortune to come his way, or as the adversary of daring warriors and mythological creatures. These tales may have found their way into the vibrant commercial world of Bergen and the royal court, which, inspired by the courtly literature of the time, was looking for new and more refined cultural models, through the mouths of the merchants who travelled the Hanseatic routes. The result of this encounter was Þiðreks saga af Bern (The Saga of Theoderic of Verona), translated here for the first time into Italian from the Old Norse, which tells of a Þiðrekr-Teoderic who, like Arthur and Charlemagne, attracts a circle of brave companions in his youth, some of whom are known from other legendary cycles. In the new setting, the ruler does not end his parable as an exile, but reconquers the kingdom and continues to tread the ground as an indomitable adventurer until his mysterious disappearance, now old, riding a demonic mount.