gles of rivalry between the Regions. The
final destruction of its monuments dates from the sacking of Rome by
Robert Guiscard with his Normans and Saracens in the year one thousand
and eighty-four, when the great Duke of Apulia came in arms to succour
Hildebrand, Pope Gregory the Seventh, against the Emperor Henry the
Fourth, smarting under the bitter humiliation of Canossa; and against
his Antipope Clement, more than a hundred years after Otto had come back
in anger to avenge Pope John. There is no more striking picture of the
fearful contest between the Church and the Empire.

[Illustration: PIAZZA DI SAN GIOVANNI IN LATERANO]

Alexis, Emperor of the East, had sent Henry, Emperor of the Holy Roman
Empire, one hundred and forty-four thousand pieces of gold, and one
hundred pieces of woven scarlet, as an inducement to make war upon the
Norman Duke, the Pope's friend. But the Romans feared Henry and sent
ambassadors to him, and on the twenty-first of March, being the Thursday
before Palm Sunday, the Lateran gate was opened for him to enter in
triumph. The city was divided against itself, the nobles were for
Hildebrand, the people were against him. The Emperor seized the Lateran
palace and all the bridges. The Pope fled to the Castle of Sant' Angelo,
an impregnable fortress in those times, ever ready and ever provisioned
for a siege. Of the nobles Henry required fifty hostages as earnest of
their neutrality. On the next day he threw his gold to the rabble and
they elected his Antipope Gilbert, who called himself Clement the Third,
and certain bishops from North Italy consecrated him in the Lateran on
Palm Sunday.

Meanwhile Hildebrand secretly sent swift riders to Apulia, calling on
Robert Guiscard for help, and still the nobles were faithful to him, and
though Henry held the bridges, they were strong in Trastevere and the
Borgo, which is the region between the Castle of Sant' Angelo and Saint
Peter's. So it turned out that when Henry tried to bring his Antipope in
solemn procession to enthrone him in the Pontifical chair, on Easter
day, he found mailed knights and footmen waiting for him, and had to
fight his way to the Vatican, and forty of his men were killed and
wounded in the fray, while the armed nobles lost not one. Yet he reached
the Vatican at last, and there he was crowned by the false Pope he had
made, with the crown of the Holy Roman Empire. The chronicler apologizes
for calling him an emperor at all. Then h