Editing Exarchate of Ravenna (section)

==Introduction==
{{Main|Praetorian prefecture of Italy}}
In 395 [[Theodosius I]] bequeathed the throne of the [[Roman Empire]] to his two sons: [[Arcadius]] was Emperor of the East; [[Honorius (emperor)|Honorius]] became [[Western Roman Empire|Western Roman Emperor]]. The Roman Empire would never return to a single ruler.

The [[Praetorian prefecture of Italy|Prefecture of Italy]] suffered the invasion of barbarians in the [[5th century]]: the first to cross the Alps was [[Alaric I|Alaric]], [[Visigothic Kingdom|king of the Visigoths]]. He arrived in [[Aquileia]] in 401 and from there headed for [[Milan]], which he besieged the following year. Honorius, no longer feeling safe, moved to [[Ravenna]] and established the new capital of the Western Empire there.

In 476 Ravenna fell due to a military coup d'état by the general [[Odoacer]] who, at the head of a militia of [[Heruli]], [[Sciri]], [[Rugii]] and [[Turcilingi]] mercenaries (i.e. the Germanic component of the imperial troops), ousted [[Romulus Augustulus]] and took possession of the city. The kingdom of Odoacer, the first Roman-barbarian kingdom to exist in Italy, was short-lived: in 493 Odoacer was defeated by the king of the [[Ostrogoths]], [[Theodoric the Great|Theodoric]], who became the new lord of Italy. The new [[Ostrogothic Kingdom]] established by Theodoric continued to maintain, as previously, the Roman provincial and state organisation.

Around the middle of the [[6th century]], Emperor [[Justinian I]] launched an impressive series of campaigns for the reconquest of the West and in particular Italy. On the peninsula the emperor began the long and bloody [[Gothic War (535–554)|war against the Ostrogoths]]. In 540 Ravenna, capital of the Goths and seat of the prefecture, was reconquered and the Byzantines began to appoint their own prefects there. The long campaign ended only in 552-554 with the decisive expedition of the general [[Narses]].

On 13 August 554, with the promulgation in [[Constantinople]] by Justinian of a ''pragmatica sanctio pro petitione Vigilii'' (pragmatic sanction on the requests of [[Pope Vigilius]]), the Prefecture of Italy returned, although not yet completely pacified, to Roman dominion. However, [[Sicily]] and [[Dalmatia (Roman province)|Dalmatia]] were separated from the Prefecture of Italy: the former did not become part of any prefecture, being governed by a praetor dependent on Constantinople, while the latter was aggregated to the [[Praetorian prefecture of Illyricum|Prefecture of Illyricum]]. Consequently, at the end of the conflict, the prefecture of Italy, also called ''Provincia Italiae'' by the Pragmatic Sanction as if to demonstrate a loss of importance, was reduced to only continental and peninsular Italy (Sardinia and Corsica, conquered by the [[Vandals]] in the century, after Justinian's reconquest they became part of the [[Praetorian prefecture of Africa]]).

Narses still remained in Italy with extraordinary powers and also reorganized the defensive, administrative and fiscal apparatus. Four military commands were allocated to defend the prefecture, one in ''[[Cividale del Friuli|Forum Iulii]]'', one in [[Trento]], one in the region of Lake Maggiore and Como and finally one in the [[Cottian Alps|Cottian]] and [[Graian Alps]].