Risone, the archbishop of the city, was murdered (1117) and the princess of Taranto, Constance of France, was imprisoned at Giovinazzo (1119) by Grimoald Alferanites, the prince of Bari, and Alexander.
After Roger was defeated at the Battle of Nocera in 1132, Tancred returned to the Mezzogiorno and entered into open rebellion again, taking the cities of Montepeloso and Acerenza, with the support of their populations.
Roger crossed the Straits of Messina with a large force and Alexander was so afraid that he abandoned his city of Matera to his son, Geoffrey the Younger, and fled to the court of Ranulf.
In 1142, near the end of his life, he appears as an envoy along with Robert of Capua of Conrad III of Germany to the Byzantine Emperor John II Comnenus.
Their mission was the arrangement of a marriage between Conrad's sister-in-law Bertha of Sulzbach and John's son Manuel.