Editing Benevento (section)

===Duchy of Benevento===
{{main|Duchy of Benevento}}
Not long after it had been sacked by [[Totila]] and its walls razed (545), Benevento became the seat of a powerful [[Lombards|Lombard]] [[duchy]].<ref name="EB1911"/> The circumstances of the creation of [[duchy of Benevento]] are disputed. Lombards were present in southern Italy well before the complete conquest of the [[Po Valley]]: the duchy would have been founded in 576 by some soldiers led by [[Zotto]], autonomously from the Lombard king.
[[File:Italy 1000 AD.svg|left|180px|thumb|The Principality of Benevento as it appeared in 1000 AD.]]
Zotto's successor was [[Arechis I of Benevento|Arechis I]] (died in 640), from the [[Duchy of Friuli]], who captured [[Capua]] and [[Crotone]], sacked the Byzantine [[Amalfi]] but was unable to capture [[Naples]]. After his reign the [[Eastern Roman Empire]] had only Naples, Amalfi, Gaeta, Sorrento, the tip of Calabria and the maritime cities of [[Apulia]] left in southern Italy.

In the following decades, Benevento added some territories to the Roman-Byzantine duchy by conquest, but the main enemy was now the northern Lombard Kingdom itself. [[King Liutprand]] intervened several times, imposing a candidate of his own to the realm's succession; his successor [[Ratchis]] declared the duchies of Spoleto and Benevento to be foreign countries where it was forbidden to travel without royal permission.

With the collapse of the Lombard Kingdom in 773, [[Arechis II of Benevento|Duke Arechis II]] was elevated to Prince under the new [[Frankish Empire]], in compensation for having some of his territory transferred back to the [[Papal States]].

In November 774, the Duke of Benevento [[Arechis II of Benevento|Duke Arechis II]], immediately after being crowned prince, decided to send members of the Benevento Cortisani and [[Baccari]] families to occupy the central area of the [[Biferno]] river in the neighboring region of [[Molise]], seeking to expand their political dominance.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Bozza|first=Francesco|url=http://web-serv.provincia.campobasso.it/biblioteca/link/Antistoria.pdf|title=L'antistoria nell'area del medio biferno: Ricostruzioni di cornici per le inquadrature di storia molisana|publisher=History Books|year=2014|location=Italia|pages=121|access-date=2021-07-27|archive-date=2021-07-26|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210726190220/http://web-serv.provincia.campobasso.it/biblioteca/link/Antistoria.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=2jwOAQAAIAAJ&pg=GBS.PA288&hl=en|title=Historiae urbium et Regionum Italiae rariores|date=1763|publisher=A. Forni|language=it}}</ref>
[[File:Church tower of Santa Sofia, Benevento 04.jpg|thumb|Map of Duchy of Benevento on the church tower of Santa Sofia.]]
Benevento was acclaimed by a chronicler as a "second Pavia"—{{lang|la|Ticinum geminum}}—after the Lombard capital was lost. This principality was short-lived: in 851, [[Salerno]] broke off under [[Siconulf]] and, by the end of that century, [[Capua]] was independent as well. Benevento was ruled again by the [[Byzantine Empire|Byzantine]]s between 891 and 895.

The so-called ''[[Langobardia minor]]'' was unified for the last time by Duke [[Pandolfo Testa di Ferro]], who expanded his extensive control in the [[Mezzogiorno]] from his base in Benevento and [[Capua]]. Before his death (March 981), he had also gained the title of Duke of Spoleto from Emperor [[Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor|Otto I]]. However, both Benevento and Salerno rebelled to his son and heir, [[Pandulf II of Salerno|Pandulf II]].

The first decades of the 11th century saw two more German-descended rulers in southern Italy: [[Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor|Henry II]], conquered in 1022 both Capua and Benevento, but returned after the failed siege of [[Troia (FG)|Troia]]. [[Conrad II, Holy Roman Emperor|Conrad II]] obtained similar results in 1038. In these years the three states (Benevento, Capua, and Salerno) were often engaged in local wars and disputes that favoured the rise of the [[Normans]] from mercenaries to ruler of the whole of Southern Italy. The greatest of them was [[Robert Guiscard]], who captured Benevento in 1053 after the [[Emperor Henry III]] had first authorised its conquest in 1047 when [[Pandulf III of Benevento|Pandulf III]] and [[Landulf VI of Benevento|Landulf VI]] shut the gates to him. These princes were later expelled from the city and then recalled after the pope failed to defend it from Guiscard. The city fell to Normans in 1077. It was a papal city until after 1081.