PROCIDA, GIOVANNI DI, an eminent Sicilian patriot, was born at Salerno about 1225, and became proprietor of the island of Procida. His first appearance on the stage of history was made in 1266, when Charles of Anjou slew Manfredi, King of Sicily, at the battle of Benevento, and seized upon the vacant throne. All his time and fortune were forthwith staked upon an enterprise for restoring the expelled house of Hohenstaufen. To draw the sword in behalf of the stripling Conrad was his first attempt. When that prince was defeated and executed, all his efforts were next directed to the formation of a widely-organized conspiracy against the triumphant usurper. He hastened to Spain to persuade Peter of Aragon to claim the Sicilian crown in right of his wife, the daughter of Manfredi. He returned to Sicily in disguise, to encourage the rebellious spirit among his countrymen, with the promise of assistance from the King of Aragon. He then repaired to the Emperor Michael Palaeologus at Constantinople, and brought back money to buy weapons for the disarmed natives. At length he drew the chief of his accomplices to Palermo, and waited until some accident should light the train which he had so artfully laid. That accident soon occurred. It happened on the Easter Monday of 1282 that a mixed procession of citizens and French invaders set out from Palermo to hear vespers at a neighbouring village church. On the way a Frenchman began to be rude to a Sicilian maiden, and was immediately stabbed to the heart by the betrothed of the insulted girl. This desperate deed acted like a firebrand upon the excited tempers of the natives. Their long pent-up revenge burst into a wild explosion; the cry of "Death to the French" rose in the air; each man turned with drawn dagger upon the foreigner that was next him; and before the vespers-bell had ceased to sound, every Frenchman in the company was slain. Nor was their thirst for vengeance slaked with so much blood. They rushed home to exterminate those foreigners who had remained in the city. Neither age nor sex was spared. The carnage raged indiscriminately until 4000 lay weltering in their blood, and the fury of the assassins was suddenly checked for want of victims. This massacre, known by the name of "the Sicilian vespers," decided the fate of Sicily. The revolt spread through the rest of the country; Peter of Aragon landed and received the crown; Charles of Anjou was repulsed in his attempt to regain the island; and Giovanni di Procida, before his death at the beginning of the fourteenth century, had the satisfaction of seeing that through his patriotic exertions the lawful sovereigns of Sicily were seated in undisputed possession of the throne.