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Bohemond, Duke Of Apulia
William II (December 115311 November 1189), called the Good, was king of Sicily from 1166 to 1189. From surviving sources William's character is indistinct. Lacking in military enterprise, secluded and pleasure-loving, he seldom emerged from his palace life at Palermo. Yet his reign is marked by an ambitious foreign policy and a vigorous diplomacy. Champion of the papacy and in secret league with the Lombard cities, he was able to defy the common enemy, Frederick Barbarossa. In the ''Divine Comedy'', Dante places William II in Paradise. He is also referred to in Boccaccio's ''Decameron'' (tale IV.4, where he reportedly has two children, and tale V.7). William was nicknamed "the Good" only in the decades following his death. It is due less to his character than to the cessation of the internal troubles that plagued his father's reign and the wars that erupted under his successor. Under the Staufer dynasty his reign was characterised as a golden age of peace and justice. His nume ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
King Of Sicily
The monarchs of Sicily ruled from the establishment of the Kingdom of Sicily in 1130 until the "perfect fusion" in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in 1816. The origins of the Sicilian monarchy lie in the Norman conquest of southern Italy which occurred between the 11th and 12th century. Sicily, which was ruled as an Islamic Emirate of Sicily, emirate for at least two centuries, was invaded in 1071 by Normans, Norman House of Hauteville, who conquered Palermo and established a feudal county named the County of Sicily. The House of Hauteville completed their conquest of Sicily in 1091. In 1130, the County of Sicily and the County of Apulia, ruled by different branches of the House of Hauteville, merged as the Kingdom of Sicily, and Count Roger II of Sicily, Roger II was crowned king by Antipope Anacletus II. In 1282, after the Sicilian Vespers, the kingdom split into separate states: the properly named "Ultra Sicily" (''Siciliae ultra Pharum'', Latin for "Sicily over the Strait of M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dante
Dante Alighieri (; most likely baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri; – September 14, 1321), widely known mononymously as Dante, was an Italian Italian poetry, poet, writer, and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', originally called (modern Italian: ) and later christened by Giovanni Boccaccio, is widely considered one of the most important poems of the Middle Ages and the greatest literary work in the Italian language. Dante chose to write in the vernacular, specifically, his own Tuscan dialect, at a time when much literature was still written in Latin, which was accessible only to educated readers, and many of his fellow Italian poets wrote in French or Provençal dialect, Provençal. His ' (''On Eloquence in the Vernacular'') was one of the first scholarly defenses of the vernacular. His use of the Florentine dialect for works such as ''La Vita Nuova, The New Life'' (1295) and ''Divine Comedy'' helped establish the modern-day standardized Italian language. His wo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maria Komnene (daughter Of Manuel I)
Maria Komnene (or Comnena) (, ''Maria Komnēnē''; Constantinople, March 1152 – July 1182) was the eldest daughter of the Emperor Manuel I Komnenos by his first wife, Bertha of Sulzbach.Garland-StoneBertha-Irene of Sulzbach, first wife of Manuel I Comnenus/ref> She was known as the Porphyrogennete (Πορφυρογέννητη) or Porphyrogenita because she had been "born in the Purple Chamber", i.e. born in the Palace at Constantinople to the wife of a reigning emperor. Maria was probably born in March 1152. According to Cinnamus, she was given the title '' Augusta'' at her birth. In 1163 she was engaged to the future King Béla III of Hungary; Manuel, no longer expecting to father a legitimate son, was at that time ready to designate Béla (whom he had given the new court dignity of '' despotes'' and had renamed "Alexios") as his eventual successor. This engagement was broken off in 1169, soon after Manuel's son Alexios was born. Maria was then engaged to King William II of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trani
Trani () is a seaport of Apulia, Southern Italy, on the Adriatic Sea, by railway west-northwest of Bari. It is one of the capital cities of the province of Barletta-Andria-Trani (BAT). History Overview The city of ''Turenum'' appears for the first time in the , a 13th-century copy of an ancient Roman itinerary. The name, also spelled ''Tirenum'', was that of the Greek hero Diomedes. The city was later occupied by the Lombards and the Byzantines. First certain news of an urban settlement in Trani, however, trace back only to the 9th century. The most flourishing age of Trani was the 11th century, when it became an episcopal see in place of Canosa, destroyed by the Saracens. Its port, well placed for the Crusades, then developed greatly, becoming the most important on the Adriatic Sea. In the year 1063 Trani issued the ''Ordinamenta et consuetudo maris'', which is "the oldest surviving maritime law code of the Latin West".Paul Oldfield, ''City and Community in Norman Italy' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bertrand II (archbishop Of Trani)
Bertrand II (died 1187) was the Archbishop of Trani from 1157 until his death.G. A. Loud, ''The Latin Church in Norman Italy'' (Cambridge, 2007), 277. In 1167 he was sent to Constantinople to arrange a marriage alliance for William II with the Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived History of the Roman Empire, the events that caused the ....P. Oldfield, ''City and Community in Norman Italy'' (Oxford, 2009), 231. Cf. J. Parker, "The attempted Byzantine alliance with the Sicilian kingdom, 1166–1167", ''Papers of the British Society of Rome'', 24 (1956), 86–93. He also exposed a conspiracy by Maio of Bari to kill Robert of San Giovanni. His successor was Samarus. Notes 1187 deaths 12th-century Italian Roman Catholic archbishops Year of birth unknown {{Italy-RC-archbishop-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry, Prince Of Capua
Henry (''Arricus'' or ''Arrico'') (1160–1172) was the youngest and second surviving son of William I of Sicily by Margaret of Navarre. By his father's will he succeeded to the title Prince of Capua, an appanage to the throne, while his brother William II succeeded to the throne. Henry's coronation as prince was postponed from the death of his father (1166). Henry was present with William at Taranto, where the young king awaited his Greek bride. They planned to return via Capua and there invest Henry with his principality, but not far off from the town, Henry came down with a high fever. He was hurried to Salerno and thence to Palermo, but died within the month. According to legend, he was betrothed to a daughter of Malcolm IV of Scotland Malcolm IV (; ), nicknamed Virgo, "the Maiden" (between 23 April and 24 May 1141 – 9 December 1165) was King of Scotland from 1153 until his death. He was the eldest son of Henry, Earl of Huntingdon and Northumbria (died 1152) and Ada de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Santissimo Salvatore, Palermo
The Church of Most Holy Saviour (Italian language, Italian: Chiesa del Santissimo Salvatore) is a Baroque architecture, Baroque-style, Roman Catholic church in Palermo, Italy. It is located at #396 of the ancient main street of Palermo, the Cassaro, Palermo, Cassaro, presently Via Vittorio Emanuele, in the ancient Albergaria (Palazzo Reale), Albergaria Quarter (urban subdivision), quarter. History The site of the present church was formerly the location of a Basilian monks, Basilian (Eastern Rite) monastery and church dedicated to the Saviour, founded in 1072 by the Norman Robert Guiscard. Royal patronage of the church and monastery continued under House of Hohenstaufen, Hohenstaufen rule. It was said that Constance I of Sicily, Constance, Queen of Sicily (1154-1198) was confined to the church as a nun from her childhood until the age of 30, due to the prediction that "her marriage would destroy Sicily". In 1501, the monastery was converted to the Latin Rite. In 1528, a new chu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Constance I Of Sicily
Constance I (; 2 November 1154 – 27 November 1198) was the queen of Sicily from 1194 until her death and Holy Roman empress from 1191 to 1197 as the wife of Emperor Henry VI. As queen regnant of Sicily, she reigned jointly with her spouse and later with her infant son, the future Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II. She is particularly notable for her actions against her own family, the Norman kings of Sicily; she played an important role in the end of the Hauteville presence in Sicily. Despite being the sole heir to the throne of Sicily, she did not marry until she was 30 due to an ominous prophecy. Shortly after becoming empress, she was involved in the succession war against her illegitimate nephew King Tancred for the Sicilian throne, during which she was captured, though she was later released unharmed. In the history of Holy Roman Empire only two empresses were captured, with the other being her mother-in-law Empress Beatrice. Shortly before ascending the Sicilian thron ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Matthew Of Ajello
Matthew of Ajello () was a high-ranking member of the Norman court of the Kingdom of Sicily in the 12th century. His brother John was a bishop. Career He first appears as the notary of the Admiral Maio of Bari who drew up the Treaty of Benevento of 1156. He rose to prominence in the next reign, that of William II of Sicily, becoming first grand protonotary and then chancellor. Maio groomed Matthew to be his successor and, it was alleged, even used him to get permission from Pope Alexander III in Rome for Maio to succeed William I in 1159. On 10 November 1160, Matthew warned Maio of an impending assassination attempt, but to no avail. While Matthew escaped, Maio was killed by Matthew Bonnellus. In 1162, Matthew interceded to prevent the William I from sacking Salerno. On William's death, he became foremost among the advisors of the queen regent, Margaret of Navarre. After the rebellions of the later years of William's reign, Matthew compiled from memory a vast catalogue of re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walter Ophamil
Walter Ophamil or Offamil (fl. 1160–1191), italianised as Gualtiero Offamiglio or Offamilio from Latin ''Ophamilius'', was the archdeacon of Cefalù, dean of Agrigento, and archbishop of Palermo (1168–1191), called "''il primo ministro''", the first minister of the crown. He came to Sicily with Peter of Blois and Stephen du Perche at the direction of Rotrou, Archbishop of Rouen, cousin of Queen Margaret of Navarre, originally as a tutor to the royal children of William I of Sicily and Margaret. His mother was Bona, a patron of the Abbey of Cluny and a ''devota et fidelis nostra'' of the king in 1172. His father is unknown. From his name he was long thought to be an Englishman ("Walter of the Mill") but this interpretation is now rejected in favour of ''ophamilius'' referring to Walter as William II's ''protofamiliaris'', the senior confidant of the king in his royal household, the '' familiaris regis''. Biography Walter's first appearance in the historical record ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stephen Du Perche
Stephen du Perche (1137 or 1138 – 1169) was the chancellor of the Kingdom of Sicily (1166–68) and Archbishop of Palermo (1167–68) during the early regency of his cousin, the queen dowager Margaret of Navarre (1166–71). Stephen is described by the contemporary chronicler Hugo Falcandus as "a son of the count of Perche", Rotrou III. He was a young man when he entered politics, born at the earliest in 1137 or 1138. He may have been named after King Stephen of England, at the time ruling the Duchy of Normandy. Arrival in Italy In 1166, Margaret appealed to her other cousin, Rotrou, Archbishop of Rouen, to send her a family member to aid and support her in government. Coincidentally, Stephen was at that moment preparing to go on crusade to the Holy Land and so decided to visit Palermo, the capital of Sicily, for a few months. There he ended up staying for two years. He was very young at the time, described as ''puer'' and ''adolescens'' by William of Tyre, and may have s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kufic
The Kufic script () is a style of Arabic script, that gained prominence early on as a preferred script for Quran transcription and architectural decoration, and it has since become a reference and an archetype for a number of other Arabic scripts. It developed from the Arabic alphabet in the city of Kufa, from which its name is derived. Kufic is characterized by angular, rectilinear letterforms and its horizontal orientation. There are many different versions of Kufic, such as square Kufic, floriated Kufic, knotted Kufic, and others. The artistic styling of Kufic led to its use in a non-Arabic context in Europe, as decoration on architecture, known as pseudo-Kufic. History Origin of the Kufic script Calligraphers in the early Islamic period used a variety of methods to transcribe Quran manuscripts. Arabic calligraphy became one of the most important branches of Islamic Art. Calligraphers came out with the new style of writing called Kufic. Kufic is the oldest calligraphic f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
