Robert Guiscard

Profile

Robert Guiscard, called Ruberto Guiscardo in the verses, was a Norman warlord, son of Tancred of Hauteville and brother of Richard, Duke of Normandy. Dante mentions him twice in the Commedia. In the Inferno (XXVIII, 14), the poet includes his name in the list of peoples who opposed the Normans, alongside other ranks that fell in bloody wars of conquest. In the Paradiso (XVIII, 48), Guiscard is placed by Cacciaguida among the blessed who shine in the cross of the Heaven of Mars, gleaming like a star. His presence among the defenders of the faith is linked, according to the notes, to the war he waged against the Saracens, who were driven from the lands of Puglia, and to his loyalty to the Church, documented by episodes such as the liberation of Pope Gregory VII besieged in Castel Sant'Angelo by Henry IV. In 1059 he received from Pope Nicholas II the title of Duke of Puglia and Calabria. He died in 1085 on Cephalonia. His deeds were celebrated in the Latin poem Gesta Roberti Wiscardi, composed around the middle of the thirteenth century by William of Puglia.