Episode #1.2 - Production & Contact Info (original) (raw)

As Byzantine power crumbled, a rebel governor invited Moors from Northern Africa, who ended up turning the whole island into an exceptionally tolerant Muslim emirate, establishing a new capital at Palermo, which became a rich, cosmopolitan...See moreAs Byzantine power crumbled, a rebel governor invited Moors from Northern Africa, who ended up turning the whole island into an exceptionally tolerant Muslim emirate, establishing a new capital at Palermo, which became a rich, cosmopolitan, major European metropolis. While duke William of Normandy conquered England swiftly, the Hauteville family from his converted Vikings nobility joined the Crusades, and managed with great effort to turn Sicily into a crusader kingdom. It fell to the Staufian imperial dynasty of Henry VI, then after an Anjou Neapolitan intermezzo five centuries under Aragon's Spanish-Catalan rule. They introduced the Spanish Inquisition, a regime of Catholic intolerance and persecution of Jews and heretics. The Bourbon house of Spain was evicted as Garibaldi started his 19th century reunification of Italy in Syracuse, but under Italian rule a new scourge emerged from within: the mafia. Cultures continue to mix and foreigners to immigrate into the cosmopolitan island, even when right wing parties in Rome call for a fortress Europe. Written by KGF Vissers See less