Case Study II: Naples

At the dawn of the second millennium, southern Italy was still suspended between the East and the West de­spite various attempts by the German emperors to enforce the sovereign rights they claimed effective, by chasing out the Byzantines and inserting the Lombard principalities into their sphere of influence. In the course of the tenth century, these attempts had seemed on the point of success, first with Otto of Saxony, then with his son Otto II, and above all with his grandson Otto III, born from the marriage between Otto II and the Byzantine princess Theophane. In this context, Naples, “a