Sir,—With regard to Thomas O’Loughlin’s ‘Giraldus Cambrensis’s view ofEurope’ (HI Summer 2000), would the fact that Reggio di Calabria isemphasised in the map have anything to do with the fact that the HolyRoman Emperors resided at that stage mainly in the very south of Italyand in fact later in Sicily which had come to Henry VI through hiswife, but had to be conquered all the same? I’m not a historian, but Ido remember from school that things went rather up and down for theEmperors, and that they kept moving house. So could that also be areason why Reggio was inserted and then scraped out?
—Yours etc.,
IMME MALLIN
Dublin
Possibly;or it may be because Giraldus had heard of the Normans in that area.The map requires much more study than it has received to-date.
Thomas O’Loughlin