Sicily

Sicily is the turning point in Alfonso’s interrupted journey to the Holy Land: storm-driven there, he marries Victoria and leaves her pregnant before resuming his Crusade. The marriage and their daughter’s birth become crucial evidence of a lawful line of descent, hidden for years while Ricardo assumes power in Otranto.

Alfonso’s Arrival

While Alfonso was sailing to the Holy Land, a storm drove his vessel to the coast of Sicily. A separate ship carrying Ricardo and his retinue was separated from Alfonso. Jerome later recounts that Alfonso remained wind-bound in Sicily for three months, an enforced delay that changed the course of his family’s history.

Marriage and Hidden Heir

During those months, Alfonso fell in love with Victoria. Jerome explains that Alfonso, unwilling to violate his religious commitments, married her rather than pursue a forbidden relationship. Because Alfonso considered the marriage incompatible with the vow of arms he had taken for the Crusade, he concealed it until he could return and acknowledge Victoria as his lawful wife.

Alfonso left Victoria pregnant. While he was away, she gave birth to a daughter; soon afterward, she heard the report that Alfonso had died and that Ricardo had succeeded him. Without support, Victoria had little prospect of making her claim accepted. Jerome says he possesses an authentic document concerning the marriage, but the account of Sicily also establishes the essential facts: Alfonso and Victoria were married, and their child was born during his absence.

Role in the Succession

The Sicilian episode supplies the hidden family history behind the later dispute over Otranto. Ricardo’s succession rested on a fictitious will, while Alfonso’s marriage and child offered a lawful alternative line of inheritance. When Jerome reveals this history, Manfred accepts that Alfonso had an heir and relinquishes his dominions, though he says he had not known of the heir before.

Sicily therefore matters not as a lasting setting for the action, but as the place where a private marriage creates a claim that will outlive the apparent succession. The three-month delay, the concealed marriage, and the birth of a daughter together explain how Alfonso’s line persisted beyond the false report of his death and why the revelation overturns Manfred’s rule.