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From: Michael Maddi <>
Subject: Re: [DNA] The ruin of Italy / for Plummer
Date: Mon, 1 Oct 2007 06:03:45 -0700 (PDT)


Gioiello Tognoni wrote:

Dear Plummer,
your observations, by a genetic point of view, are
flimsy: they wouldn’t merit an answer. But what you
are saying is important from another perspective.
The genetic impact of Normans on South Italy is
negligible (on Sardinia is null).
But Normans have two merits:
1) they annihilated the Arab presence in Sicily (see
my postings on Lucera…);
2) they generated “Federigo”.
He was half German and half Norman, but he was
“Italian”, and we owe him the first Italian Poetical
School (the “Scuola Poetica Siciliana”), in Sicilian
dialect; and the fact that he tried to unify Italy,
that would have become the first and most powerful
National Monarchy in Europe. Unfortunately he found on
his path the blindness of the “Comuni” and the Church,
the Pope, the “Jewish God”: the “ruina d’Italia” (N.
Machiavelli, Il Principe).


My reply:

I do agree with your point that the Normans probably
had a minimal impact on the genetic makeup of southern
Italy. Based on my reading of Sicilian history it
seems that number of Norman men who settled in Sicily
was relatively small. Plus, the Normans ruled Sicily
and southern Italy for only about 125 years.

Your point about the Normans "annihilating" the Arab
presence in Sicily is not true. Under the Norman rule
(and also under the first half of Frederick
Hohenstaufen's, "Federigo," rule), Sicily was a
multi-cultural, multi-ethnic society. One of the
reasons I believe that not many Norman men settled in
Sicily is that the Norman kings used Arab-speaking
Muslims as administrators in their court in Palermo
and around the island. There were close trade and
other relations under the Normans with Muslim North
Africa. This does not sound to me like some sort of
"annihilation."

I also know that the town where my paternal
grandparents were born, Mezzojuso, was founded by
Sicily's Muslim rulers during the 10th century. This
town retained a significant, perhaps majority, Muslim
population for at least 75 years into the Norman rule
and probably until about 1230, under Frederick's rule,
when Sicily's Muslims were relocated to Lucera.

It is true that there was a revolt by the native
Sicilian barons in the mid-12th century against the
Norman king and his Muslim advisers. But this was
against the religious tolerance policy of the Norman
kings. And yes, eventually Frederick did remove the
Muslim population to Lucera. However, he did that
under pressure from the Vatican, which opposed his
secular, pro-ecumenical approach to relations with the
Muslim world. (He was excommunicated for dragging his
feet on leading a Crusade. When he eventually did go
on Crusade, he negotiated a peaceful handing over of
Jerusalem to the Christians, while still
excommunicated.) And although he did relocate the
Sicilian Muslims (probably more Berbers than Arabs),
he did not remove them from his kingdom. The Muslim
troops who were relocated to Lucera remained one of
his most trusted and loyal military units. You also
mention Frederick's involvement in promoting "Scuola
Poetica Siciliana." It's a fact that this school of
poetry was heavily influenced by the literary output
of Al-Andalus (Muslim Spain), where Muslim, Jewish and
Christian writers and translators worked together.

I don't dispute your point about the Normans and
Sicily's Muslim population from some personal ancestry
standpoint. My yDNA line is R1b1c9, therefore not from
the Middle East or Mediterranean. Given my Frisian
haplotype, my paternal line is probably from northern
Europe and may even be Norman. I write this just from
the standard of historical accuracy and admiration for
the model of governing that the Norman kings carried
out in Sicily.

Mike Maddi
Sicily Project Co-Administrator



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