[JEAN BAPTISTE DE MIRABAUD]: LE COMPTE ROGER, sOUVERAIN DE CALABRE. PARIS 1754 First edition, small 8vo, contemporary full leather with very few wear at corners, spine richly gilt, text clean and bright, complete 138p., overall in very good condition. In early 11th century, calabria was a completely Greek region,from ancient times,governed more than 500 years by a Greek Byzantine state based in Constantinople. The book chronicle the life and conquests of Roger Guiscard (1030-1101), the Norman nobleman who conquered Byzantine Calabria and all south Italy putting an end in the Greek Byzantine presence in Italy. He established a multicultural state later where Greek, latin and Arabic influences coexisted. A scarce comprehensive 18th century account dealing for the first time with the events of the 11th century in south Italy. It often draws from the primary Latin chronicle of Goffredo Malaterra the monk who was Rogers contemporary biographer who gave a contemporary account how a small group of Norman adventurers ended up ruling the Mediterranean at the end of the 11th century taken profit from the Byzantine and Arab contemporary collapses. Malaterra emphasies how the Normans transformed the Calabrian landscape, Before the Norman conquest was a land of open Greek villages, they constructed castles who allowed a very small number of knights to control a massive, often hostile, Greek local population. The account shows Roger moving from a younger brother with nothing to the Count of Calabria. The conquest of Sicily followed. An important source for the presence of Greeks in south Italy.