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Gaeta is a city in the province of Latina, in Lazio, Southern Italy. Set on a promontory stretching towards the Gulf of Gaeta, it is 120 kilometres from Rome and 80 km (50 mi) from Naples.
The House of Caetani, or Gaetani, is the name of an Italian noble family, originally from the city of Gaeta, connected by some to the lineage of the lords of the Duchy of Gaeta, as well as to the patrician Gaetani of the Republic of Pisa. It played an important role in Rome, in the Papal States and in the Kingdom of Naples, and later in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
Guaimar IV was Prince of Salerno (1027–1052), Duke of Amalfi (1039–1052), Duke of Gaeta (1040–1041), and Prince of Capua (1038–1047) in Southern Italy over the period from 1027 to 1052. He was an important figure in the final phase of Byzantine authority in the Mezzogiorno and the commencement of Norman power. He was, according to Amatus of Montecassino, "more courageous than his father, more generous and more courteous; indeed he possessed all the qualities a layman should have—except that he took an excessive delight in women."
The Duchy of Gaeta was an early medieval state centered on the coastal South Italian city of Gaeta. It began in the early ninth century as the local community began to grow autonomous as Byzantine power lagged in the Mediterranean and the peninsula due to Lombard and Saracen incursions.
Richard Drengot was the count of Aversa (1049–1078), prince of Capua and duke of Gaeta (1064–1078).
Gisulf II was the last Lombard prince of Salerno (1052–1077).
Alberic I was the Lombard Duke of Spoleto from between 896 and 900 until 920, 922, or thereabouts. He was also Margrave of Camerino, and the son-in-law of Theophylact I, Count of Tusculum, the most powerful man in Rome.
William of Montreuil, was an Italo-Norman freebooter of the mid-eleventh century who was briefly Duke of Gaeta. He was described by Amatus of Monte Cassino as "an exceptional knight, small in stature, who was very robust, strong, valiant" and by Orderic Vitalis as 'the good Norman'.
Richard III, also known as Richard of Caleno, was the Norman count of Carinola and last quasi-independent Duke of Gaeta, ruling from 1121 to his death. From 1113, he was regent of Gaeta for his cousin or nephew, Duke Jonathan; in 1121 he succeeded him. As duke he was a nominal vassal of the Princes of Capua, to whom he was related.
Ptolemy I was the count of Tusculum in the first quarter of the twelfth century. He was a son of Gregory III. Peter Pisanus, in his Vita Paschalis II refers to Ptolemy and the abbot of Farfa as the allies of the emperor in the same way that the Saints Peter and Paul were the allies of the pope.
William de Blosseville, probably from Blosseville, was the consul and duke of Gaeta from 1103 to 1105, after ousting Duke Gualganus. He appears on Gaetan follari of his time as DV, which stands for dux Vilelmus. In 1105, he was exiled by Richard I of Aquila after less than two years as duke.
The Drengots were a Norman family of mercenaries, one of the first to head to Southern Italy to fight in the service of the Lombards. They became the most prominent family after the Hautevilles.
The Principality of Capua was a Lombard state centred on Capua in Southern Italy. Towards the end of the 10th century the Principality reached its apogee, occupying most of the Terra di Lavoro area. It was originally a gastaldate, then a county, within the principality of Salerno.
Sergius VI was the magister militum and duke of Naples from 1077 to his death. He was the son of the Neapolitan senator John, and succeeded his uncle, John's elder brother, Sergius V. His sister Inmilgia married Duke Landulf of Gaeta. His reign is very obscure because of the slight documentary evidence.
The Norman conquest of southern Italy lasted from 999 to 1139, involving many battles and independent conquerors.
Jonathan, a member of a cadet branch of the Drengot family, was the Duke of Gaeta from 1113 until his death. He is known from the Codex Caietanus to have been in the fourth year of his minority in 1116 and the seventh of his rule in 1119. There are three theories of his paternity. He may have been the son of Count Jonathan I of Carinola or his grandson by an unnamed son, or else the grandson of Count Bartholomew of Carinola. He was under the regency of his cousin or uncle, Count Richard of Carinola.
Gualganus, surnamed Ridel, was the third and last Count of Pontecorvo and Duke of Gaeta of the Norman Ridel family from about 1091 until about 1103. He was a son and successor of Duke Raynald Ridel, but his rule in Gaeta was not unopposed.
The l'Aigle family was a Norman family that derived from the town of L'Aigle, on the southeastern borders of the Duchy of Normandy. They first appear during the rule of Duke Richard II of Normandy, in the early 11th century, and they would hold L'Aigle for the Norman Dukes and Kings of England until the first half of the 13th century, when with the fall of Normandy to the French crown the last of the line was forced to abandon the ancestral French lands, only to die in England a few years later without surviving English heirs. Their position on the borderlands, and near the headwaters of three rivers, the Risle, Iton and Avre, gave their small holding a special importance, as did a set of marriage connections that provided this relatively minor Norman noble family with a more elevated historical visibility. Having been neighbors and benefactors of the Abbey of Saint-Evroul, the family receive mostly favourable coverage in the 12th-century chronicle of Orderic Vitalis.
Andrew was the Duke of Gaeta from 1111 until his death in 1113. He succeeded his father, Duke Richard II, upon the latter's death. He left no heir at his own death and his duchy escheated to Prince Robert I of Capua, his suzerain. His successor, Jonathan, was in power by May 1113.
References
- ↑ Petri Diaconi, Chronica Monasterii Casinensis IV.54, MGH SS VII, p. 788., "Richardus de Aquila...Bartholomei de Caleno filius".
