Roberto the Guiscardo, the abstained, conquered Salerno and made its capital, to pass to the conquest of all the Mezzogiorno and start the discarded of the Arabs from Sicily, a work concluded by his nephew Ruggiero, first King of the two Sicilies.
1015
1085
Norman Duke, conqueror
Roberto il Guiscardo He did not go up, but in Salerno came from afar, and he found himself well, so much to make his capital.
He was Norman and son of another Guiscardo, that is, smart, and that says a lot about him. Strange people, these Normans, who conquered half of Europe with their unbeatable heavy cavalry. Originally they were Vikings, “men of the North” who a century before had conquered a piece of France, Normandy. From there, fierce and restless, vagrant like the pirates who were, left to conquer other lands.
And Guiscardo came to Salerno, called by the Lombard prince Guaimario, who married his daughter Sichelgaita. But the Guiscardo could not be vassal of anyone, he fought with his father-in-law, then with the brother-in-law Gisulph II who succeeded him, and went away from Salerno beginning to fight, and to defeat, armies from all over the world. He defeated the pope, and made him a prisoner, but then with him he became an alliance; later he attacked the Byzantines and the armies of Salerno, conquering Puglia and Calabria. He attacked the Arabs at this point, beginning the conquest of Sicily.
He then decided to free himself of the brother-in-law, and conquered Salerno, ending the glorious history of the Lombards. He departed for Greece, disturbing the Byzantines at home, and also conquered Cyprus, and was at the gates of Thessaloniki, directed towards Byzantium when he learned that Pope Gregory VII was besieged by the Germans in Rome. He departed from Greece, landed in Apulia, with a mad ride arrived in Rome, gave a lesson to Henry IV, that of Canossa, and brought with him Gregory, who ended his days in Salerno.
He took no breath, because he departed for the lands of Greece, and died there during the siege of Kefalonia. We are in 1085, the history of Salerno was living its best moment, the cathedral of San Matteo had been built and the Medical School had its best representatives. But it was also the beginning of the decline for the beautiful city, the capital of the Guiscardo that built as its palace the Castel Terracena.
