Author Spotlight: Michael Kister and the Myth of Venice
Here is a feature on one of our recent authors - Michael Kister, who is studying the Sicilian war of succession 1189–1194 as a PhD candidate at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich.
Kister has authored "The Battle that Never Was: Punta Salvore and the Myth of Venice" (14-17) in issue 13 of Medieval World: Culture & Conflict.
"My passions are split between history and journalism. I did a few internships at media outlets such as the Bavarian Broadcasting Network and the German history periodical SPIEGEL Geschichte before I became self-employed as a freelance writer to finance my academic pursuits. Being fascinated with the history of the late 19th and early 20th century in the beginning, the Middle Ages hold me in their grip ever since I started my bachelor’s degree at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich. The lecturer of my first course there, simply entitled “The Knights”, captivated my interest in this period once and for all. I embarked on a journey with stops at the Panthéon-Sorbonne University in Paris and at the oldest university of Western Europe in Bologna that for now climaxed in me doing a PhD in Medieval History.
My PhD is on the conquest of the Kingdom of Sicily by Emperor Henry VI between 1189 and 1194. I try to approach it from an angle that encompasses the perspective of those who are all too often overlooked: the simple folk, the population of a war-stricken strip of land. Not only observing kings, popes, and emperors battling it out on the field of glory gives a voice to those who suffer the most in every war and brings to light their strategies of adaptation when being confronted with a new regime. Consequently, I also focus on the history of war and violence through the ages in my journalistic work. Among the most enthralling aspects of it, I find, is the reception of such martial events and how their memory was used, mostly for political purposes.
I give a radical example that shows how a conflict story from the Middle Ages shapes perceptions up until today even though it is made-up in my last article for Medieval World: Culture & Conflict 13. The backstory is rather telling. When I attended a summer school in Venice last year, we got a tour around the Doge’s Palace and were just marveling at the monumental battle paintings that decorate the Hall of the Great Council therein. The guide cunningly explained every one of them to us, but in front of “The Battle of Salvore” by Domenico Tintoretto, we were in disbelief. She told us about this naval battle in which the Venetians had triumphed over Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa and thus brought peace back to Italy – except that none of us emerging historians had ever heard of it. “It’s in our chronicles”, the guide countered our objection to its veracity. And that’s the point: It is only in their chronicles."
