Premium Featured Accommodation

The History of the Middle Ages in Italy

The first centuries of the Middle Ages saw Italy as a land of conquest for many "barbarian" populations (Visigoths, Goths, Huns).

The first two long-lasting occupations were those of the Lombards in the North and of the Byzantines in the South, along with a Papal State that, in the meantime, thanks to personages such as Gregory I "the Great", was becoming a political State in Central Italy.

St. Benedict was the great founder of monasticism and in places such as Subiaco, Norcia and Cassino preserved a great part of classical culture from destruction and oblivion, a commitment later renewed by St. Francis of Assisi.

Then came Charlemagne and the Holy Roman Empire, followed by the free municipalities and seignories of the North and of the Norman-Swabian-Angevin and Aragonese of the South (with a long Arabian parentheses in Sicily), and the recurring nightmare of the Saracen raids.

A moment of glory came with the maritime Republics: Pisa and Amalfi - splendid but soon defeated - Genoa and Venice, who ruled the seas and trade routes up through the Modern Age.

Articles