ZURITA, Jeronimo, et al.

by Jeronimo, et al Zurita

£2,250 · Offered by Sokol Books

First edition of this compendium of chronicles of the medieval Aragonese kings and the rulers of the kingdom of Sicily, consisting of the Renaissance historian Zurita s Indices rerum ab Aragoniae regibus gestarum, issued in the second part with an account of Robert and Roger Guiscard or Viscardi, Norman Dukes of Sicily, by Gaufredo Malaterra, an eleventh-century monk resident in Sicily; the life of Roger II, King of Sicily by another monastic author, the twelfth-century Alessandro Telesino; and a genealogy of Robert Guiscard taken from the fourteenth-century historian Ptolemy of Lucca. Zurita, sometimes considered to be the first modern Spanish historian, begins his account as early as the seventh century, setting the scene for the development of the historical scene over the next five hundred years: the simultaneous rise of the Visigothic kings in Spain, from whom the Aragonese were descended, and the appearance of the Saracens during the reign of the Byzantine emperor Heraclius, spreading to control all of North Africa and eventually much of Spain. However, much of his account is dedicated to Aragonese exploits outside of Spain, including the Sicilian Vespers, in which Aragon took control of Sicily from the French, and the subsequent bloody wars for control of the island. Zurita s account ends in 1410 with the death of King Martin of the House of Barcelona, who was regent of Sicily. In order to confirm the authenticity of his account, Zurita personally sought out sources in

• Binding: Hardcover

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