1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Salimbene
SALIMBENE, or more usually Salimbene of Parma (1221–c. 1290), the name taken by the Italian writer, Ognibene di Guido di Adamo. The son of a crusader, Gui di Adamo, and born at Parma on the 9th of October 1221, Ognibene entered the order of the Minorites in 1238, and was known as brother Salimbene. He passed some years in Pisa and other Italian towns; then in 1247 he was sent to Lyons, and from Lyons he went to Paris, returning through France to Genoa, where he became a priest in 1249. From 1249 to 1256 he resided at Ferrara, engaged in writing and in copying manuscripts, but later he found time to move from place to place. His concluding years were mainly spent in monastic retirement in Italy, and he died soon after 1288.
Salimbene was acquainted with many of the important personages of his day, including the emperor Frederick II., the French king St Louis and Pope Innocent IV.; and his Chronicon, written after 1281, is a work of unusual value. This covers the period 1167–1287. Salimbene is a very discursive and a very personal writer, but he gives a remarkably vivid picture of life in France and Italy during the 13th century. The manuscript of the chronicle was found during the 18th century, and passed into the Vatican library, where it now remains. The part of the Chronicon dealing with the period between 1212 and 1287 was edited by A. Bertani and published at Parma in 1857. This edition, however, is very defective, but an excellent and more complete one has been edited by O. Holder-Egger, and is printed in Band xxxii. of the Monumenta Germaniae historica. Scriptores (Hanover, 1905).
See U. Balzani, Le Croniche italiane nel medio evo (Milan, 1884); L. Clédat, De fratre Salimbene et de ejus chronicae auctoritate (Paris, 1878); E. Michael, Salimbene und seine Chronik (Innsbruck, 1889); A. Molmier, Les Sources de l’histoire de France, tome iii. (1903); D. W. Duthie, The Case of Sir John Fastolf and other Historical Studies (1907); G. G. Coulton, From St Francis to Dante (1906).