The richest and most politically complex regions in Italy in the earliest Middle Ages were the Byzantine sections of the peninsula, thanks to their links with the most coherent early medieval state, the Byzantine Empire. This comparative study of the histories of Rome, Ravenna, and Venice arises from their unifying element: their common Byzantine past, since all three escaped being incorporated into the Lombard kingdom in the late seventh and early eighth centuries. By 750, however, their political links with the Byzantine Empire were irrevocably severed, except in the case of Venice. Thus, after 750, and in the ninth and tenth centuries, did these cities remain socially and culturally heirs of Byzantium in their political structures, social organization, material culture, ideological frame of reference, and representation of identity? Did they become part of the Western political and ideological framework of Italy: Frankish Carolingian in the ninth, and German Ottonian in the tenth, centuries? This book attempts to identify and analyse the ways in which each of these cities preserved the continuity of structures of the late antique and Byzantine cultural and social world; or in which they adapted each and every element available in Italy to their own needs, at various times, and in various ways. It does so through a story which encompasses the main contemporary narratives, the documentary evidence, recent archaeological discoveries, and discussions on art history, and it follows the markers of status and identity through titles, names, ethnic groups, liturgy and ritual, foundation myths, representations, symbols, and topographies of power.
