Had he succeeded he would have become the greatest ruler in Europe since the Roman Empire. But the Vespers marked the beginning of his downfall, and with him fell the possibility of a universal papal monarchy. A: Penguin Books Inc. Bibliography 1. Original Sources m1. The Royal House of France Il. The Royal House of Sicily Naples β. The Imperial House of Hohenstaufen v. Tue Sicilian Vespers are seldom remembered nowadays. A century and more ago it was different.
It is " Not to be expected that anyone today will wade through the poetic tragedies of Casimir Delavigne or of Mrs Felicia Hemans; and it is to be hoped that no one will try to learn history from the libretto that Scribe provided for Verdi. That was an unfortunate work. Amari was a fine d learned historian who scrupulously unearthed all the evidence at he could find and brought it together into a coherent story. But mari was also a politician.
He wished to encourage the Sicilians to against the Bourbons by telling them of their successful rising inst the House of Anjou.
His learning was all directed to this one d, not without success. But his deliberate bias narrowed his vision. The massacre was one of those events in wry which altered the fate of nations and of world-wide institu-. To understand its importance we must sce itinits international ag. The canvas is wide; it has to stretch from England to Palestine, from Constantinople to Tunis.
It is also crowded with characters; but a historical canvas is necessarily crowded, and readers who are afraid of crowds should keep to the better-ordered lanes of fiction. The story has various themes which unite at this one point. It is the story of a brilliant prince whose arrogance was his undoing.
