the Palermo poet Giovanni Meli, and the ease of pronunciation of the word for an Englishman. But most likely because having lost an eye in battle in 1794, he was able to identify himself with the Cyclops (mythical giant one-eyed creatures, makers of the thunderbolts of Zeus, god of war, and assistants of the smith-god Hephaestus), whose forge was supposed to be underneath Mount Etna. He signed his will as "Nelson Bronte", and the initials "NB" appear on the wrought-iron entrance gates at Castello di Maniace (which are also the initials of his foe Napoleon Bonaparte). Ducal powers The grant, of perpetual duration and comprising about 15,000 hectares (62,000 acres) of land, included extensive feudal rights, the same as had been held from the 15th century by the previous overlord, the Ospedale Grande e Nuovo in Palermo, including: "the City of Bronte" (population 9,500) "with all its tenures and districts, together with its fiefdoms, marches, fortifications, vassal citizens, revenues of the vassals, censuses, services, bondage and gabelles". The dukedom also included the power of mero et mixto imperio, the sole power of the exercise of justice, both civil and criminal, including capital punishment. The title later became part of the nobility of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Local opposition Aside from having been granted by a king from the Spanish royal family considered foreign and abhorrent by many Sicilians, the new dukedom was not popular with a powerful faction of the local population who had felt oppressed for centuries by the feudal power of the Hospital of Palermo, the previous overlord of Bronte, from which they believed they had just recently obtained freedom, after finally winning a legal battle lasting many centuries. The king compensated the Hospital of Palermo (with an annuity of 71,500 lire) but ignored the free status claimed by the Brontese, who thus felt themselves subjected once again to a harsh feudal government, this time by a foreigner. Two parties thus arose in the local population, the ducale, supportive of the duchy, and the comunista, supportive of an independent Commune of Bronte. Many indeed were highly sympathetic to the ideals of the French Revolution, and felt that Nelson had "smothered with bloodshed the Neapolitan Republic" and confounded their dream to live in a new society where feudalism would be extinguished. The Brontese historian Benedetto Radice wrote in 1928: "Thus Bronte, due to the fairytale of its