Robert's brother, Roger, crossed the strait of Messina and
began the subjugation of Sicily, then a Moslem possession. Its recovery from
the hands of "infidels" was considered by the Normans a work both
pleasing to God and profitable to themselves. By the close of the eleventh
century they had finally established their rule in the island.
KINGDOM OF THE TWO SICILIES
The conquests of the Normans in southern Italy and Sicily
were united into a single state, which came to be known as the kingdom of the
Two Sicilies. The Normans governed it for only about one hundred and fifty
years, but under other rulers it lasted until the middle of the nineteenth
century, when the present kingdom of Italy came into existence.
NORMAN CULTURE IN THE SOUTH
The kingdom of the Two Sicilies was well-governed, rich,
and strong. Art and learning flourished in the cities of Naples, Salerno, and
Palermo. Southern Italy and Sicily under the Normans became a meeting-point of
Byzantine and Arabic civilization. The Norman kingdom formed an important
channel through which the wisdom of the East flowed to the North and to the
West.
