Editing Exarchate of Ravenna (section)

==Lombard invasion and Byzantine reaction ==
[[File:Agilulf's Italy-it.png|left|thumb|The Byzantines (orange) and the Lombards (cyan) in 590.]]In 568, the [[Lombards]] under King [[Alboin]], together with other Germanic allies, invaded [[Northern Italy]]. The area had only a few years ago been completely pacified, and had suffered greatly during the long Gothic War. The local Byzantine forces were weak and, after taking several towns, in 569 the Lombards conquered [[Milan]].{{citation needed|date=July 2016}} They took [[Pavia]] after a three-year siege in 572 and made it their capital.<ref>{{cite book |last=Paul the Deacon |title=Historia Langobardorum |chapter=Book 2:ch. 26-27}}</ref> In subsequent years, they took [[Tuscany]]. Other military initiatives led by [[Faroald I of Spoleto|Faroald]] and [[Zotto]], penetrated into [[Central Italy|Central]] and [[Southern Italy]], where they established the duchies of [[Duchy of Spoleto|Spoleto]] and [[Duchy of Benevento|Benevento]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Hodgkin |title=The Lombard Invasion |series=Italy and Her Invaders, Vol. 5, Book VI |pages=71–73}}</ref> However, after Alboin's murder in 573, the Lombards fragmented into several autonomous duchies (the "[[Rule of the Dukes]]").

Emperor [[Justin II]] tried to take advantage of the Lombardian fragmentation in 576 by sending his son-in-law, [[Baduarius]], to Italy. However, he was defeated and killed in battle,<ref>{{cite book |last=John of Biclaro |title=Chronicle}}</ref> and the continuing crises in the [[Balkans]] and the East meant that another imperial effort at reconquest was not possible. Because of the Lombard incursions, the Roman possessions had fragmented into several isolated territories. In 580, Emperor [[Tiberius II]] reorganized them into five province ''eparchies'': the ''Annonaria'' in northeastern Italy around Ravenna, [[Calabria]], [[Campania]], [[Emilia (region of Italy)|Aemilia]] and the ''Urbicaria'' around the city of [[Rome]] (''Urbs'').{{sfn|Conti|1975}} What would become the [[Republic of Venice]] was at some point created out of part of the exarchy's territory. The title of the [[Doge of Venice]] included the phrase {{lang|la|dux Veneciarum provinciae}}, marking it as a province of the Byzantine Empire.

By the end of the 6th century the new order of powers had settled into a stable pattern. Ravenna, governed by its exarch, who held civil and military authority in addition to his ecclesiastical office, was confined to the city, its port and environs as far north as the [[Po River|Po]] (bordering territory of the duke of [[Venice]], nominally in imperial service) and south to the [[Marecchia|Marecchia River]], beyond which lay the [[Duchy of the Pentapolis]] on the Adriatic, also under a duke nominally representing the Emperor of the East.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Hallenbeck |first=Jan.T |title=Pavia and Rome: The Lombard Monarchy and the Papacy in the Eighth Century |journal=Transactions, American Philosophical Society |volume=72 |date=1982 |isbn=9781422374733 |publisher=American Philosophical Society |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/pHRi0AEACAAJ }}</ref>