ed with acclamation. "Thus, in less than three years," remarks
Gibbon, "the son of Tancred of Hauteville enjoyed the glory of delivering
the Pope, and of compelling the two Emperors of the East and West to fly
before his victorious arms." Guiscard's triumphal entry into Rome was
however marred by scenes of violence and scandal, due to the conduct of
the Saracen troops which his brother, the great Count Roger of Sicily, had
brought to assist the enterprise. So infuriated were the Romans by the
behaviour of the infidels, that the prudent Gregory deemed it wiser to
return to Salerno together with his deliverer, and it was in Guiscard's
palace that the famous "Caesar of spiritual conquest" expired three years
later. As to the Great Adventurer himself, he died in the island of
Cephalonia in the very year of the Pope's death at Salerno (1085) and was
buried beside his first wife, the gentle Alberada, at Venosa in Apulia,
though the city which he had always loved and favoured would seem to have
offered a more appropriate spot for his interment.

But although the mortal remains of the Great Adventurer do not rest within
the precincts of his beloved city, an undying monument of his glorious but
turbulent reign is to be found in the Cathedral, which despite the neglect
and alterations of eight centuries may still be ranked as one of the most
interesting buildings in Southern Italy. Standing in a secluded part of
the town, this magnificent church gains nothing from its position, for it
can only be reached by means of tortuous dingy lanes, and even on a near
approach the effect produced on the visitor is not impressive. "The
Cathedral-church of San Matteo," says the Scotch traveller, Joseph
Forsyth, in quaint pedantic language, "is a pile so antique and so modern,
so repaired and rhapsodic, that it exhibits patches of every style, and is
of no style itself." But is not this quality, we ask, exactly what a great
historic building, such as Guiscard's church, truly demands? Ought not it
to bear the impress of the various ages it has survived, and of the many
famous persons who have contributed to its embellishment? From Duke
Robert's day to the present time, the Cathedral is an epitome of the
history of Salerno, a sermon in stones concerning the great past and the
inglorious present of the city.

In the year preceding his own death and that of the great Pontiff, who was
tarrying at Salerno as his not over-willing guest, Duke Robert ere