Birthplace of Amerigo Vespucci, Florence
A CHRONOLOGICAL RÉSUMÉ OF ITALIAN HISTORY
THE NORTH ITALIAN STATES AND REPUBLICS
FROM THE FALL OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE TO THE ELEVENTH CENTURY (476-1000 A.D.)
The deposition of Romulus Augustulus (476) opens a new era for the Italian people. The entire peninsula comes under the titular sway of the Eastern emperor, Odoacer the Herulian chief ruling as king of his own people, and as regent over the rest of the inhabitants. This mixed Teutonic and Roman government is continued by the Ostrogothic dynasty beginning with Theodoric, who in 493 at the commission of the emperor overthrows and replaces Odoacer. The chief strength of the Ostrogoths lies in northern Italy; they have little influence over the descendants of the Greek colonists in the south. The ties between Italy and Constantinople having become very weak, Justinian I plans the reconquest of Italy. By the efforts of Belisarius and Narses this is accomplished in 553; the Ostrogothic kingdom falls. Italy is again a real member of the Roman Empire, ruled in the emperor’s name by the exarch whose capital is at Ravenna. This state of affairs lasts but fifteen years. Narses, the first exarch, recalled to Constantinople in 565, and disaffected with his treatment by the empress, is said to have invited Alboin the Lombard chief to invade the Italian peninsula. In 568 he crosses the Alps, and in three years is master of nearly the whole of northern Italy. The political unity of the peninsula is broken, not to be repaired until the latter half of the nineteenth century. The Lombards penetrate through the middle of the peninsula. Venice, founded about 452 by families from Aquileia and Pavia fleeing from Attila, remains untouched. So does Genoa and its Riviera. Rome does not acknowledge the Lombard rule at Pavia, neither does the country east of the Apennines from the Po to Ancona where the exarch rules at Ravenna, nor the duchy of Naples, the islands of Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica, and the southernmost province of Calabria. The duchies of Spoleto and Benevento have Lombard rulers, but they are nearly independent of Pavia. Such is the condition of Italy at the end of the sixth century.
Before the close of the next hundred years Constans II (662) makes a vain attempt to restore the empire in Italy. The protecting power of Constantinople becomes weaker and weaker, and in 713 the Venetian islands unite for the purpose of self-government. Paoluccio Anafesto, the first doge, is elected and a council of tribunes and judges chosen. This government lasts until 737 when in a popular tumult the doge Orso is killed, his ducal office abolished, and replaced by an annually elected maestro della milizia (master of the military); but in five years (742) the life-holding office of doge is restored. Meanwhile the growing Lombard power has encroached on the exarch’s dominions; the iconoclastic controversy has virtually alienated the sympathies of the Italian people from the Eastern emperor, and in 752 the Byzantine possessions in northern Italy are conquered by Aistulf the Lombard king, and the exarch flees from Ravenna. Pepin comes from France at the call of the pope, seizes Aistulf’s conquests which he hands over to Stephen (755), and from this gift arises the temporal sovereignty of the pope, which lasts until 1870. In 774 Charlemagne puts an end to the Lombard dominion in northern Italy, and his Italian kingdom extends from the Alps to Terracina. This is included in the Western Empire when it is restored in 800.
Thus the political map of Italy at the beginning of the ninth century shows Rome the head of an empire governing the greater part of the peninsula; Gaeta, Naples, Calabria, Apulia, Sicily, and Sardinia still give their allegiance to Constantinople. Venice, though quite independent, acknowledges the Eastern emperor, and the duke of Benevento pays tribute to him of the West.
In 810 the people of Venice remove the seat of government from the mainland to the present city and the building of St. Mark’s is begun.