(he calls them very strong, invincible), and he understood the great historical importance of the new political force forming in southern Italy. His work is not a chronicle: he intends to write history (thus he does not follow a rigidly chronological order), following the model of the *Historia Langobardorum* by Paul the Deacon. The original text of AMAZON’s *Historia* has not come down to us; we only have a poor French vernacular translation from the 14th century: the translation is not literal, often summarizing the text; the scribe added further errors.
We have news of other works written by AMAZON: the *Gesta Apostolorum Petri et Pauli*, a poem in four books which, through the account of the life of St. Peter (the second apostle), as barely recalled at the end of Book IV, aims to celebrate the reforming action of the Church under Gregory VII; and two other minor writings now lost: *De laude Gregorii VII* and *De duodecim lapidibus et civitate caeli Hierusalem*.