CNG 84, Lot: 1744. Estimate $750. Sold for $1050. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

ITALY, Salerno. Roberto il Guiscardo. Duke of Apulia, 1059-1085. Æ Follaro (27mm, 6.71 g, 1h). Struck 1076-1085. Facing bust of Christ Pantocrator; [I]C [XC] across field / XC [• R]Є/[XC • ImPE in two lines. CNI XVIII 5-10; Travaini, Monetazione type 34; MEC 14, 75-82. Near VF, brown patina. Overstruck on Travaini type 33.

The sixth son of Tancred de Hauteville and the brother of both Guglielmo Braccio-di-Ferro and Drogone, powerful Norman mercenaries in Italy, Roberto il Guiscardo himself arrived in southern Italy sometime around 1047. Hoping to acquire some grant of land in that area, Roberto, spent his initial years in southern Italy as a mercenary for his brothers, as well as several of the local Lombard princes. As a result of his abilities – in particular, his victory over the papal coalition at Civitate in 1053, Roberto rose to prominence. In 1057, he was appointed Count of Apulia, and in 1059, Duke of Apulia, Calabria, and Sicilia. Shortly after his appointment, Roberto began taking actual control of the territories granted him. Between 1059 and 1061, he secured control of Calabria from the Byzantines. Between 1061 and 1072, he joined his brother Ruggero Bosso (Ruggero I) in a series of campaigns in Sicilia that opened the way for the eventual Norman conquest of that island. In 1071, the Byzantines were finally expelled from southern Italy with their defeat at Bari, and in 1076, Roberto siezed the city of Salerno, making his control of southern Italy virtually complete. Because his rebellious vassals often turned to the Byzantine Empire for assistance, Roberto attempted an attack on the Empire itself. Taking up the cause of the ousted Michael VII against Alexius I, Roberto proceded to take the neighboring Byzantine territories of Corfu and Durazzo and, in October 1081, dealt Alexius a severe blow at Dyrrhachium. Roberto, however, was unable to pursue his opportunity, because soon after he was recalled to assist Pope Gregory VII against the Holy Roman emperor, Henry IV. Having successfully reinstalled the pope in Rome, Roberto returned to recover the territories he had won from the Byzantines, but which had been lost in the meantime by his son, Boemond I d’Antiochia. In the course of this recovery, in 1085, he died of camp fever on the island of Cefalonia along with 500 of his knights.