HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

277

opposition which was made on all sides to both the tenures. In 1053, ^ e ytotally defeated an immense army, levied and headed against them by Pope Leothe Ninth in person, though the whole of their own force exceeded not sixthousand men ; in consequence of which victory, their apparently inveteratefoe was under the necessity of ratifying and confirming the imperial grant, withthe addition of Calabria, reserving to himself, according to the custom of thetime, as supreme head of the church, a certain annual tribute, an exaction towhich, under different denominations, all the emperors and sovereigns of Christ-endom were for many centuries subject. This proved the origin of the connec-tion between Sicily, and that part of Italy now distinguished by the better knownappellation of the kingdom of Naples, a connection which, strange to relate,has been most wonderfully continued, though with a few interruptions, owingto causes widely diverging from each other, and irrelative to the subject ofinvestigation, down to the present moment.

Such was the ascendancy and powder of the Normans, that in the year 1060,Robert Guiscard was regularly invested with the rank and title of Duke, orCount of Apulia and Calabria *. His ambition, still unsated by victory andconquest, prompted him to extend farther the influence of his arms, till heacquired the undisputed possession of the whole of that extensive districtforming the Neapolitan dominions. The acquisition even of this territory,

* Among his conquests was that of Atnalphi, a town of high nautical importance, and whichsome years afterwards became additionally deserving of notice, on account of the wonderful discovery,far as Europe was concerned, of the properties of the loadstone, which originated there. “ Sevenmiles to the west of Salerno, (says Mr. Gibbon) and thirty to the south of Naples, the obscure townof Atnalphi displayed the power and rewards of industry. The land, however fertile, was of narrowextent, but the sea was accessible and open. The inhabitants first assumed the office of supplying thewestern world with the manufactures and productions of the east, and this useful traffic was the sourceof their opulence and freedom. The government was popular under the administration of a Duke,and the supremacy of the Greek emperor. Fifty thousand citizens were numbered in the walls ofAtnalphi, nor was any city more abundantly provided with gold, silver, and the objects of preciousluxury. The mariners who swarmed in her port, excelled in the theory and practice of navigation,and astronomy ; and the discovery of the compass, which has opened the globe, is due to their inge-nuity, or good fortune. 1 heir trade was extended to the coasts, or at least to the commodities ofAfrica, Arabia, and India ; and their settlements in Constantinople, .Antioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria,acquired the privileges of independent colonies. After three hundred years of prosperity, Amalphrwas oppressed by r the arms of the Normans, and sacked by the jealousy of Pisa; but the poverty ofone thousand fishermen is yet dignified by the remains of an arsenal, a cathedral, and the palaces oiroyal merchants,”

proved