When on Christmas Day, 1130, Roger de Hauteville was crowned first King of Sicily, the island entered a golden age. Norman and Italian, Greek and Arab, Lombard, Englishman and Jew all contributed to a culture that was fantastically cosmopolitan; and to an atmosphere of racial and religious toleration unparalleled in Europe. But sixty-four years later, to the day, when the bastard King Tancred was defeated, the sun set on the Sicilian Kingdom. In this second volume of John Julius Norwich`s scintillating history of the Normans in Sicily, Norwich describes the `happiest and most glorious chapter of the island`s history.`