The ''Chronica Romanorum pontificum et imperatorum ac de rebus in Apulia gestis'' ("Chronicle of the Roman Bishops and Emperors and of the Deeds Done in Apulia") is a 13th-century

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

prose chronicle by an anonymous monk of the monastery of

Santa Maria della Ferraria The Abbey of Santa Maria della Ferraria was a Cistercian monastery located in Vairano Patenora, Province of Caserta, Italy. Presently only ruins remain. History It was founded in 1179 by monks from the abbey of Fossanova in Lazio, which had been ...

in southern Italy. It is sometimes called the ''Ferraris Chronicle'', ''Chronica Ferrariensis'' or ''Chronicle of Santa Maria di Ferraria''. The chronicle was rediscovered in Bologna in the nineteenth century and published in English translation only in 2017. It is a single undivided text, conceived as a continuation of the ''Chronica maiora'' of

Bede Bede ( ; ang, Bǣda , ; 672/326 May 735), also known as Saint Bede, The Venerable Bede, and Bede the Venerable ( la, Beda Venerabilis), was an English monk at the monastery of St Peter and its companion monastery of St Paul in the Kingdom o ...

. It covers events from 781 until 1228, when it abruptly ends. It is most valuable for the

Norman period The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Norman, Breton, Flemish, and French troops, all led by the Duke of Normandy, later styled William the Conque ...

in southern Italy and for events connected with the monastery of Santa Maria. However, its last section, covering the reign of Frederick II, whom the chronicler met, is original and written in the present tense. The author had access to now lost portions of the chronicle of

Falco of Benevento Falco of Benevento ( it, Falcone Beneventano; lng, Falco Penevent) was an Italian-Lombard twelfth-century historian, notary and scribe in the papal palace in Benevento, his native city, where he was born to high-standing parents. He is an im ...

, which in its surviving form covers the years 1103–1140. The ''Chronica Romanorum'' thus extends Falco's narrative to the years 1099–1103 and 1140–49. The format and scope of the chronicle's text has led to its characterization as the first history of the Kingdom of Sicily.

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* * * * * {{refend Italian chronicles 13th-century Latin books Kingdom of Sicily