Alamanno da Costa

[1] Alamanno came from Genoa's mercantile class, and the earliest record of him dates from 1193, when he joined an accomende, a commercial partnership, directed towards Sicily.

[4] In 1162 the Emperor Frederick I signed a treaty with the Republic of Genoa, offering it the city of Syracuse with its countryside as far as Noto if they would provide naval assistance against the Kingdom of Sicily.

He refused to honour the treaty and, because they supported the vicar of Sicily, Markward von Anweiler, in 1202 the Pisans, under Count Ranieri di Manenta, took possession of it.

[6] Leading a Genoese fleet towards Crete, Alamanno changed course at Malta and, in agreement with Enrico Pescatore, attacked Syracuse, which had only recently been occupied by Pisa.

[1][6] As historian David Abulafia asserts, "it [is] hard to understand what say the Genoese had in the appointment of the counts of a foreign kingdom", yet during the minority of the Sicilian king Frederick I they seem to have had a say.

[10] Shortly after, a Pisan fleet of ten navi and twelve galleys (with "many other vessels") and an army under Count Ranieri di Manenta besieged Syracuse for three-and-a-half months.

The Genoese convinced him to augment this force with more galleys and smaller vessels, as well as sixteen more navi, apparently the most powerful ship class, before attacking the Pisan fleet at Syracuse.

[2] In 1220 Frederick II began asserting royal rights in Syracuse, attempting to throw out the Genoese, and proclaiming the city "most faithful" (fidelissima).

He was certainly deceased by 1229, when the podestà of Genoa, Iacopo di Balduino, wrote to the judge of Logudoro, Marianus II, ordering him not to give assistance to Caroccino, the illegitimate son of Alamanno, accused of "acts of piracy after the fashion of his father" (exercere pyraticam more patris).