Sichelgaita

Sichelgaita, lombard princess and wife of Roberto il Guiscardo, was one of the most important characters in the history of Salerno.

Born around 1036 by Prince Guaimario IV and sister of Gisulfo II, who will be the last Lombard to reign on Salerno, had a quality education, in a female convent, probably in San Giorgio, classical education of medieval type, i.e. adherent to the trivial and quadrivial (the liberal arts), but probably also of medicine, as was typical of his city.

And the fame of medical and expert in poisons – which was the specialty of the Medical School, the one that made it famous throughout Europe – will cost her, as we will see, a non-positive reputation.

Sichelgaita found himself, in the tumultuous century in which he lived, at the center of all political and religious problems (which then intertwined). She married Roberto il Guiscardo, the Norman Duke who had put his weapons at the service of the Lombards, but then he had become so powerful to think of oust them from power. Was not a discreet and hidden bride, gave eight children to the husband, who had already married a Norman, from whom he had a son, Ruggero Borsa.

Lady of a series of possessions in Calabria and Puglia, she is always mentioned in the official letters that the Pope sends to her husband. At a time of great renewal of the Church, seeking on the one hand moral reform, on the other the rediscovery of autonomous power by the rulers and the emperor in particular, with her husband at Melfi an important council in which Pope Nicholas II in 1059 imposed his reform.

Always next to her husband – you imagine with which soul –to the siege of his city against his brother Gisulfo, a siege that ended with the defeat of the Lombard prince who went into exile in Rome, where he was elected Pope Gregory VII, the most enlightened supporter of papal power, entered into conflict with Emperor Henry IV, who besieged him in Rome and only the intervention of the Guiscardo, at the head of a powerful army, managed to free him. But then, a little guest and a little hostage, Gregory followed in Salerno Roberto, inaugurated the Cathedral, where, shortly after, he found burial.

Meanwhile the Guiscardo, restless and ambitious, was aimed at the conquest of Constantinople, and Sichelgaita was always with him, until lead the troops to her faithful in the battle of Durazzo, in which he was wounded by an arrow and contributed to her husband’s victory.

At the death of Guiscardo, the inevitable clash between Boemondo, son of first bed, and the son of Sichelgaita, Ruggero Borsa, and here the legend wants Sichelgaita to poison the stepdaughter, then, behind threat, to provide him with the antidote. Legend, but rooted in local history.

The split between the two half-brothers resolved, after clashes and battles, dividing possessions, and entrusting the western part to Ruggero and the kingdom of Antioch, and therefore the East, to Boemondo.

Sichelgaita ended his life – full and adventurous – in the quiet of the Abbey of Montecassino in 1090.