History Of Italy

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as a center of!
Christianity: starting in the 2d century AD several bishoprics were founded--in Milan, Ravenna, Naples, Benevento, and elsewhere--in addition to that of Rome. After 476, when the Germanic chieftain ODOACER deposed the last western emperor, Romulus Augustulus (r. 475-76), military control of Italy passed into barbarian hands. Under the Ostrogothic king, THEODORIC (r. 493-526; see GOTHS), in practical terms Italian political and social ties were with the West, in spite of continuing theoretical ties with the BYZANTINE EMPIRE. By 553, however, internal feuds permitted the Byzantine emperor JUSTINIAN I to regain control. Peninsular Italy was administered from its capital at RAVENNA as merely one division of the empire, although the Byzantines gradually and grudgingly admitted the ecclesiastical primacy of Rome in the West.
THE MIDDLE AGES
During the early Middle Ages, Italian ties with the "New Rome" of the East (Constantinople) were first threatened and later severed after a series of invasions from the west and north into I...