Victor III (1027-1087), pope (1086-1087), noted for his brilliant tenure as abbot of the Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino. Born Dauferius to a Lombardian ducal family in Benevento, Italy, he became a Benedictine monk, taking as his religious name Desiderius. He was abbot of Monte Cassino from 1058 to 1086 and was made a cardinal in 1059. The period of his incumbency at Monte Cassino was its golden age; he adorned the abbey, reformed its discipline, influenced other Benedictine foundations, and caused some 70 important classical, ecclesiastical, historical, and legal manuscripts to be copied. In 1078 he arranged an alliance between Pope Gregory VII and Robert Guiscard, the Norman adventurer in Italy, against Emperor Henry IV. Desiderius was elected pope by the Norman interests in 1086, but Antipope Clement III, aided by imperial troops, compelled him to pass nearly all his pontificate at Monte Cassino. In 1087 an army that Victor sent to Tunis (now Tunisia), Africa, defeated the Saracens, an event sometimes considered the beginning of the Crusades. Victor was beatified on September 23, 1887.
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