The Duchy of Persiceta (or Persiceto) in the

Kingdom of the Lombards The Kingdom of the Lombards ( la, Regnum Langobardorum; it, Regno dei Longobardi; lmo, Regn di Lombard) also known as the Lombard Kingdom; later the Kingdom of (all) Italy ( la, Regnum totius Italiae), was an early medieval state established ...

was created on territory taken from the

Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

by King Liutprand in 728. It comprised two '' pagi'' ("counties"):

Monteveglio Monteveglio (''Muntvì'' or ''Måntvî'' in the western Bolognese dialect) is a ''frazione'' (village) in the ''comune'' (municipality) of Valsamoggia. It is located about west of Bologna, near the Samoggia River, in the Italian region of Emi ...

south of the

Via Aemilia The ( it, Via Emilia; en, Aemilian Way) was a trunk Roman road in the north Italian plain, running from ''Ariminum'' (Rimini), on the Adriatic coast, to ''Placentia'' (Piacenza) on the river ''Padus'' ( Po). It was completed in 187 BC. The ' ...

and Persiceto to the north. The ''pagus'' of Persiceto and the duchy as a whole were named for its chief fortress, the ''Castrum Persiceta''. In this region in 752, King

Aistulf Aistulf (also Ahistulf, Aistulfus, Haistulfus, Astolf etc.; it, Astolfo; died December 756) was the Duke of Friuli from 744, King of the Lombards from 749, and Duke of Spoleto from 751. His reign was characterized by ruthless and ambitious ef ...

granted his brother-in-law Anselm land on which to build a monastery,

Nonantola Nonantola ( Modenese: ) is a town and '' comune'' in the province of Modena in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy. It is in the Po Valley about from Modena on the road to Ferrara. History In ancient times the territory of Nonantola ...

. The dukes of Persiceta were early patrons of Nonantola, and along with the kings gave it vast tracts of land amounting to about 400 square kilometres. Persiceta and Nonantola formed a common bulwark against

Byzantine Italy Byzantine Italy was those parts of the Italian peninsula under the control of the Byzantine empire after the fall of the Western Roman Empire (476). The last Byzantine outpost in Italy, Bari was lost in 1071. Chronologically, it refers to: *Praet ...

, which Liutprand made no further attempt to occupy. The earliest recorded duke was a Friulian, Ursus I, around 750. His son John was duke between 772 and 776, during which period the Franks conquered the kingdom. John's son, Ursus II, was sent as a child to Nonantola, tonsured as a monk and in 789 gave all his earthly goods to the monastery his father had already well endowed. This land was later leased back to the townsfolk and serves as the basis for the ''Partecipanza'', a form of

agricultural cooperative An agricultural cooperative, also known as a farmers' co-op, is a cooperative in which farmers pool their resources in certain areas of activity. A broad typology of agricultural cooperatives distinguishes between agricultural service cooperati ...

. Under the Franks the duchy became a ''pagus'' ruled by a

gastald A gastald (Latin ''gastaldus'' or ''castaldus''; Italian ''gastaldo'' or ''guastaldo'') was a Lombard official in charge of some portion of the royal demesne (a gastaldate, ''gastaldia'' or ''castaldia'') with civil, martial, and judicial powers. ...

, eventually attached to

Modena Modena (, , ; egl, label=Emilian language#Dialects, Modenese, Mòdna ; ett, Mutna; la, Mutina) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) on the south side of the Po Valley, in the Province of Modena in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern I ...

and ultimately, in 908, to

Bologna Bologna (, , ; egl, label= Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nat ...

."San Giovanni"
''Enciclopedia Italiana'' (1936). Retrieved 13 April 2013.

Notes

{{Reflist

References

*Brown, T. S. "Byzantine Italy, c. 680–c. 876". In

Rosamond McKitterick Rosamond Deborah McKitterick (born 31 May 1949) is an English medieval historian. She is an authority on the Frankish kingdoms in the eighth and ninth centuries AD, who uses palaeographical and manuscript studies to illuminate aspects of the ...

(ed.), ''The New Cambridge Medieval History'', II. Cambridge: 1995. *Everett, Nicholas. ''Literacy and Lombard Italy, c. 568–774''. Cambridge: 2003. *Forni, Guglielmo. ''Persiceto e S. Giovanni in Persiceto''. Bologna: 1921. *Gaudenzi, Augusto. "Il monastero di Nonantola, il ducato di Persiceta, e la chiesa di Bologna". ''Bullettino dell'Istituto Storico Italiano'' 22 (1901), 77–214. *Santos Salazar, Igor
"''Castrum Persiceta'': Potere e territorio in uno spazio di frontiera dal secolo VI al IX"
''Reti Medievali Rivista'' 7, 1 (2006): 1–20. Kingdom of the Lombards States and territories established in the 8th century Former duchies