Chapter 1. Portrait of a King
Bernat Desclot wrote that Jaume I was "the most handsome man in the world". Tall, blond, well-built and handsome. This, according to Stefano Cingolani, a biographer of Jaume el Conqueridor, was a family trait because his father, Pere el Catòlic (Peter the Catholic), and his son, Pere el Gran (Peter the Great), were also very good-looking. Having studied the Llibre dels fets, Cingolani has produced a portrait of a king who was a soldier but also an administrator and a politician, a man of religion without being a fanatic, whose cultural level is very much open to discussion. Jaume came between two Peres; rivalry between him and his father and his son meant he did not understand the former and was jealous of the latter.