The Normans in Sicily : The Magnificent Story of 'the Other Norman Conquest'

In 1016, a rebel Lombard lord appealed to a group of pilgrims for help-and unwittingly set in motion "the other Norman Conquest." The Normans in the South is the epic story of the House of of Robert Guiscard, perhaps the most extraordinary European adventurer between Caesar and Napoleon; his brother Roger, who helped him win Sicily from the Saracens; and his nephew Roger II, crowned at Palermo in 1130. The Kingdom in the Sun vividly evokes this "sad, superb, half-forgotten kingdom, cultivated, cosmopolitan, and tolerant," which lasted a mere 64 years. It concludes with the poignant defeat of the bastard King Tancred in 1194, bringing to a close this extraordinary chapter in Italian history. With a comprehensive listing of all of Sicily's surviving Norman monuments, the result is a superb traveler's companion and a masterpiece of the historian's art.