inst the infidel invaders, Pope Leo IV. in
course of time conferred upon the Duke or Doge, the chief magistrate of
the Republic, the title of "Defender of the Faith." Nominally under the
suzerainty of the Greek Emperor at Constantinople, Amalfi was practically
independent; its system of government was conducted on lines somewhat akin
to those of aristocratic Venice; its population is said to have exceeded
fifty thousand in the capital city alone; its boundaries extended from the
Promontory of Minerva on the west to the town of Cetara upon the confines
of Salerno; whilst many daughter-towns of wealth and importance, such as
Scala and Ravello, sprang into being within the narrow limits of the
sea-girt republic. Owning a small and by no means fertile extent of land,
the inhabitants of Amalfi from its earliest days were forced to become
merchants and sailors; to use a modern phrase, the Amalfitani came to
possess a complete monopoly of trade with Eastern lands, both Christian
and Mahommedan. It was the ships of the Republic that alone brought to the
shores of Italy the rich stuffs, the gold and silver embroideries, the
dried fruits and the strange birds and beasts of Asia Minor and Arabia,
and in exchange for their oriental merchandise obtained an abundance of
corn, wine, oil, meat and other commodities of life that their beautiful
but somewhat sterile dominions were unable to supply to an ever increasing
population. But it was not only the material products of the East that the
sailors of Amalfi conveyed to Europe in their home-bound argosies; for
they brought back with them the rudiments of arts and sciences that
distracted Italy had well-nigh forgotten during the period of the
barbarian invasions. Through the merchant princes of Amalfi, the secrets
of astronomy, of mathematics and of scientific navigation were
re-introduced into the land that had almost lost its old Roman
civilization. A priceless manuscript of that great code of laws, the
Pandects, which a Byzantine Emperor, the famous Justinian, had caused to
be compiled with such skill and labour, putting into concise and accurate
form the collected wisdom of generations of Roman jurists, was included
amongst the treasures of the East that were borne back to Italy in the
Republic's vessels. And in addition to restoring the old Roman
jurisprudence to its original home, the city of Amalfi had the honour of
promulgating the celebrated _Tabula Amalphitana_, the new maritime