Arechi II tra cronache e agiografie. Una via per giungere al mito?

Some translations of relics of saints that the Duke-Prince would have placed in the church of St. Sofia in Benevento are attributed to the time of Arechi II. These episodes have been handed primarily down hagiographic texts: they present a manuscript tradition not before the eleventh-twelfth century, although it is likely to have been drawn up previously or that are based on older versions. In these stories, Arechi is represented as a devout collector of holy bodies, handed by religious motivations, but in fact the translations and their hagiographic reports are differently interpreted. The most interesting one is the ideological-political interpretation, relatively objectives pursued by the same Arechi but also by the environment from which came the hagiographers. There are no doubt that these texts effectively contributed to the emergence and persistence of the myth of Arechi, of which, however, they weren’t exclusively responsible. With reference to the origin of this myth, in fact, it’s possible to identify several factors, in particular his own religious foundations, beginning from St. Sofia, and even the innovation, in that period, of public documents formularies; although it was undoubtedly Paul Deacon to give it an indispensable narrative and ideological support. In this essay, finally, we have tried to demonstrate that the most significant impetus to the myth of Arechi was provided in the second half of the tenth century by the Anonymous of Salerno, who delivers the prince Arechi to the history.